Thermodynamics 2.0 | 2022 Program: Sessions and Abstracts
Mon - Wed, July 18 - July 20 , 2022 , Boone, North Carolina
Session PA02: Panel 02: Unity of Sciences
13:00-14:30. Wednesday July 20, 2022
Chair: Mark Ciotola
Title: Mark Ciotola, San Francisco State University, USA
Presenter:
- Mark Ciotola
(San Francisco State University)
Bio-sketch
WORK EXPERIENCE: Lecturer, Digital History, Intellectual Property and Product Development, San Francisco State University. Past teaching work at U of New Hampshire, Monash University (Australia), Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), International Space University (France) and Singularity University. Industry experience at NASA, Genentech, Applied Biosystems, Intuit and the Kessler Group (J.P. Morgan Chase). EDUCATION: B.A. Economics, U of Wisconsin-Madison. B.A. Physics (w/concentration in Astronomy) & MBA, San Francisco State University, J.D., U of New Hampshire, Grad. Cert. Space Sciences, U. of S. Australia. RECENT AWARDS: Astrosat Huntsville Prize (2017), European Space Agency Most Innovative Business Idea (2017). RESEARCH: Current: (1) Physical and quantitative history, with a focus on expressing historical processes in terms of thermodynamics. Case studies include the rise and fall of Spain's colonial empire, Colorado's San Juan mining region historical progression, and modeling dynasties as irreversible, dissipative mechanisms. Part of this research is informed by studying energy flows through ecological networks and evolutionary processes, hence the following.(2) Evolution and recurrent selection in plant species in microgravity environments as well as development of highly-compact plant growth hardware and imaging systems. Past: multi-level atmospheric models for exoplanets and brown dwarfs (assisted Dr. Mark Marley of the NASA Ames Research Center with model generation using FORTRAN programs to exam their consistency with Spitzer Space Telescope data). MEMBERSHIPS: World History Association, American Historical Association, Social Science History Association, International Society for the Advancement of Emergy Research (a/k/a Emergy Society).
Author(s):
- Mark Ciotola
(San Francisco State University)
Abstract:PA02.180
Abstract
This panel examines the application of thermodynamics to understanding the formation of civilization, as well as its implications for the governance of society and social activism.
Fred Spier presents two novel laws of thermodynamics, both of which deal with the capture of free energy by life. Together with a few other novel general principles, this helps to explain how the biosphere works, including its entire history. In this approach, all the existing knowledge about the biosphere is integrated into one single historical world view uniting the natural sciences and the humanities. In his presentation, those general principles will be outlined.
Parker Dubée examines the history and governance theories of Technocracy Inc. Technocracy began in 1919 in New York City as an organization known then as the Technical Alliance of North America, founded by Howard Scott and a team of men and women at Columbia University—including thermodynamicist Richard Tolman—and commissioned by the U.S. government to apply the work of Willard Gibbs to study the technical management and allocation of resources of the North American continent. In 1933, when it became clear in many manufacturing areas that technology was replacing manual labor, Technocracy Inc. was formed and co-led by Scott and geologist Dr. M. King Hubbert, where it grew to tens of thousands of members across the United States and Canada. Their aim has since been to examine how a nation’s continuous increase in the use of extraneous energy affects its labor-force and monetary economy.
Andrew Wallace discusses the formation and progression of the European Network of European Technocrats to apply the work of the above Technical Alliance to Europe and has evolved into the Earth Organization of Sustainability (EOS). EOS has had affiliates across the globe and is still actively pursuing its design methodology for resource-based economic governance. It has applied some its design principles to the establishment of a community-oriented biodome in Umea, Sweden.
Keywords: big history, energy, entropy, civilization, governance, activism