Oh, is it possible that Prigogine’s “dissipative structure theory” is bogus?
I don’t believe so but…
It has a few critics through the years that it’s a bit of hocus-pocus that doesn’t apply to chemical systems under scrutiny. I see it used a _lot_ in places like economics, social systems, and other places where physics-related metaphors are commonly employed (giving reciprocal authenticity)
Prigogine is a sacred figure in the strange world of “far from equilibrium” notions, being a conceptual link to various chaotic theories, self-organizing systems, emergent properties of systems, positing itself as a facilitator of time’s arrow, creating upon creation, evolution of evolutions, building order on top of chaos.
I’ve certainly always believed it and will likely continue to. But I will scrutinize, particularly of its role as time’s-arrow-facilitator. And if there is some inbetween “partially right but in these-ways-wrong” concept that ties it together, I’m sure somebody in the last 50 years has discovered it and I just have to find it as it’s certainly alluring and has captured my fancy.