Daughter: Daddy, why do things get in a muddle?

Father: What do you mean? Things? Muddle?

D: Well, people spend a lot of time tidying things, but they never seem to spend time muddling them. Things just seem to get in a muddle by themselves.

F: Well, let’s look at what you call tidy. When your paint box is in a tidy place, where is it?

D: Here on the end of this shelf.

F: Okay—now if it were anywhere else?

D: No, that would not be tidy.

F: What about the other end of the shelf, here? Like this?

D: No, that’s not where it belongs, and anyhow it would have to be straight, not all crooked they way you put it.

F: Oh—in the right place and straight.

D: Yes.

F: Well, that means that there are only very few places which are “tidy” for your paint box—

D: Only one place—

F: No—very few places, because if I move it a little bit, like this, it is still tidy.

D: All right—but very, very few places.

F: Yes, exactly.

D: But Daddy, you didn’t finish. Why do my things get the way I say isn’t tidy?

F: But I have finished—it’s just because there are more ways which you call “untidy” than there are ways which you call “tidy”.

D: But that isn’t a reason why—

F: But, yes, it is. And it is the real and only and very important reason.

D: Oh, Daddy! Stop it.

F: No, I’m not fooling. That is the reason, and all of science is hooked up with that reason.

Let’s take another example. If I put some sand in the bottom of this cup and put some sugar on the top of it, and now stir it with a spoon, the sand and the sugar will get mixed up, won’t they?

D: Yes.

F: Now let’s suppose that somebody says that having the sand at the bottom is “tidy” or “orderly”.

D: Daddy, does somebody have to say something like that before you can go on to talk about how things are going to get mixed up when you stir them?

F: Yes—that’s just the point. They say what they hope will happen and then I tell them it won’t happen because there are so many other things that might happen.

And I know that it is more likely that one of the many things will happen and not one of the few.

D: Daddy, you’re just an old bookmaker, backing all the other horses against the one horse that I want to bet on.

F: That’s right, my dear. I get them to bet on what they call the “tidy” way.

I know that there are infinitely many muddled ways—so things will always go toward muddle and mixedness.

D: But why didn’t you say that at the beginning, Daddy?

I could have understood that all right.

F: Yes, I suppose so. Anyhow, it’s now bedtime.

Gregory Bateson, Steps To An Ecology Of Mind

Living things are characterized by very high degrees of structure and assembly, whether at the level of molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, or populations of organisms.

Life is a state of very high organization, and thus it is a state of very low probability. Living things gain their order at the expense of disordering the nutrients they consume.

Life on Earth is possible because the temperature is such that it is high enough to permit structure-creating reactions, and yet low enough to ensure that vital biochemical structures are not destroyed by the chaotic agitation from random thermal motion.

During the process of aging, the balance shifts irretrievably in the direction of chaos. Although human beings expend a lot of energy to avert death, it is a state of too high a probability to be evaded.

Jayant Udgaonkar, Entropy In Biology

Fossils are remains or traces of life that have been preserved in the rocks of Earth’s crust. “Remains” refers to both hard body parts (such as bones, shells, and teeth), as well as soft body parts (such as flesh, hair, and stomach contents) that can be preserved under certain circumstances. Trace fossils (such as tracks, burrows, nests, gizzard stones, and feces) are remains of the activities of living creatures.

Some animals feed by burrowing through mud, consuming it as they move along. Their digestive system removes all organic materials and excretes the inorganic materials. The process usually creates a burrow that is filled with sediment that is either more or less resistant to erosion than the enclosing sediment.

Through time, either the burrow or burrow filling erodes, leaving either an external mold or a cast of the burrow interior. Feeding burrows are usually oriented horizontally in sediment, while dwelling or habitat burrows are usually vertical.

Interpretive Sign, Mines Museum Of Earth Science