The Animate and The Inanimate

William Sidis — 2020

The Animate and the Inanimate was a book written by child prodigy and polymath William James Sidis (1898-1944), detailing his thoughts on the origins of life, cosmology, the potential reversibility of the second law through Maxwell's Demon, among other things. It was published in 1925, however it is suggested that Sidis was working on the theory as early as 1916. One motivation for writing this theory appears to be to explain psychologist and philosopher William James's "reserve energy" theory which claimed that there was "reserve energy" that could be used by people when put under extreme conditions, Sidis' own "forced prodigy" upbringing being a result of testing said theory. In The Animate and the Inanimate, William James Sidis states that the universe is infinite, as well as it containing sections of "negative tendencies" where various laws of physics were reversed that are juxtaposed with "positive tendencies", which switch over epochs of time. Sidis' theory at the time of its release was ignored, only to be found in an attic in 1979.

Reviews

Luca Stromann@l-s

Oct 1, 2023

Highlights

Luca Stromann@l-s

As we have said before, a zero probability is merely an extreme improbability, but not necessarily an impossibility. For instance, if we have a finite segment of a line, and we select a point on the line at random, the probability that that point will be the middle point is precisely zero, since there are on the line an infinite number of points, of which only one is the middle point;

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Luca Stromann@l-s

It follows, therefore, that the fundamental definition behind all these is:

Life is a reversal of the second law of thermodynamics.

[…] Or, to put it in in other terms […] :

Life consists of bodies with a mechanical efficiency of over 100%.

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Luca Stromann@l-s

The whole universe, including all of space and time, will tend to have as much of the positive as of the negative tendency, with a certain amount of the neutral tendency. At a particular moment of time the probabilities are that there will also be about as much of one tendency as of the other, but that in some sections of space there will be a preponderance towards the positive tendency, while in other sections of space the preponderance will be the reverse; about half of space falling under one heading, and about half of space falling under the other. In each of those portions of space there will be instances of events opposed to the prevailing tendency, presumably in certain material objects. The same applies to a more limited extent if we take one section of space with respect to the different moments of time.

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