Dialectics of Entropy

Abstract

The 19th century saw a dramatic transformation in the basic categories of knowledge, both in metaphysics and in physics the notions of time and matter became intertwined, following the industrial revolution. In a crucial sense, both dialectical materialism and entropic physics reflect the changes induced by the industrial revolution. In this paper, I will examine the notion of entropy so as to form a dialectical concept of it. In doing so, I will relate dialectical materialism and entropy to demonstrate their shared ground. The goal of this will be to show what the consequences of the industrial revolution have been on the form of time itself. Rather than the formal time, linear time of Newtonian mechanics and Kant’s transcendental idealism, time today has become an unorientable surface, relating back to itself in important ways. Taking some topological ideas from Deleuze’s treatment of the third synthesis of time in Difference and Repetition (1969), as well as Žižek’s concept of dialectical materialism from Sex and the Failed Absolute (2019), I will show how these disparate notions of material time bear on the topology of time after the industrial revolution.