Hello.
What’s on your mind, Semuu?

I see.
I don’t know if I can help,
but I’ll listen.

I see…
That’s not an easy question.
I’m not sure myself what it really means to live as an insect-human,

but the theme I’m thinking about now — “Life and Architecture” —
might be related.
It might be a bit of a detour,
but let me try to explain.

To explain this,
I need to talk a bit more about circulation.

Remember I said earlier that all activities on Earth are based on the energy coming from the sun?

To understand that better,
the concept of entropy is really useful.
Have you heard of it?

Okay, let me explain in the simplest way possible.

One of the fundamental laws of the universe is called the law of increasing entropy.
I like to call it the “law of mixing and moving toward death.”

For example,
imagine you have hot water at 80°C.
If you leave it in a room at 15°C, what will happen?

Right.
The heat in the water will mix with the surrounding air until it cools down.

Before it mixes,
there’s a flow, a tendency toward mixing,
but once it’s all mixed,aside from molecular movement, nothing will change anymore.

Without external heat,
the water will never just heat itself back up, right?

Now, imagine you have two separate bags of gas.
If you combine them, what will happen?

Right.
The gases will diffuse and mix together.

Again, before they mix,
there’s that tendency to mix,
but once it’s mixed, nothing will change anymore.

The mixed gases will never just separate on their own, right?

This is how everything in the universe tends to diffuse, mix, and head toward a lifeless state — what’s called thermal death.

But before things mix,
they have a “drive to mix” toward thermal death.

Actually, that drive is what we usually call energy.

Most forces in the universe come from this drive to mix toward thermal death.
(Technically it’s called exergy, but that’s a story for another time.)

But once things have mixed, that force is gone.

So if Earth were a completely closed system,
left alone, all phenomena would lose that energy
and Earth would become a frozen, lifeless world.

Exactly!

Left alone, Earth would head toward death.
But because the sun keeps sending energy to Earth,
it constantly creates that “drive to mix” before things actually mix.

And as I said before,
the Earth system keeps circulating that energy, changing its form.

But if Earth just kept all the heat it got from the sun,
its temperature would rise,
and the drive to mix would weaken.

Actually, Earth’s circulation works because it dumps the already-mixed heat back into space. (*1)

If we couldn’t throw away that heat,
everything would eventually stop — that’s just how the universe works.

But thanks to the delicate balance between receiving and discarding energy,
Earth’s circulation continues.

It really is a miracle planet.

I’m glad to hear that.

And now it’s time for life.

Next, let’s think about how life is involved in this circulation
and what life actually is.