The Entropic State as Creative Necessity

the analogical physics of creativity

Consider paint mixing: two colors swirling together create temporary, unrepeatable patterns. These patterns exist only in transition—between separation and uniformity, in a parallel to mental states. Like those paint swirls, certain cognitive configurations exist only in transition, in states of productive instability.

This state mirrors the thermodynamic concept of entropy: a measure of a system’s possible microscopic arrangements. High entropy means many possible states; low entropy means few. But the interesting phenomena—life, consciousness, creativity—occur in regions of medium entropy, where there’s enough order to maintain structure but enough chaos to enable change.

deconstructing common framings of binary states

The traditional framing posits a false dichotomy: order versus chaos, peace versus discord. This not only surpasses nuance, but necessarily limits the interim as not living up to either edge. They aren’t compromises between extremes but their own distinct configurations, operating according to their own logic.

Consider how we process information: not through pure order (which would be mere repetition) or pure chaos (which would be noise), but through patterns that emerge from controlled instability. Our neural networks operate at a critical point between order and randomness—what physicists call the “edge of chaos.”

the necessity of instability

Peace, in the Buddhist sense of complete mental quietude, represents a state of minimum entropy. Complete chaos represents maximum entropy (a total destruction of cause/effect, of any semblance of connection to free will). But creativity requires maintaining a state of medium entropy—a zone where novel patterns can emerge and persist long enough to be captured.

This isn’t about finding “balance” but about inhabiting a fundamentally unstable state. Like a bicycle, which is stable only in motion, creative thinking requires constant movement, constant processing of discord into novel configurations.

the productive export of chaos

Local decreases in entropy—the emergence of order, of ideas, of patterns—are possible only through the export of entropy to the broader system. This is a fundamental principle of thermodynamics, and it applies equally to mental processes.

When we create, we’re not eliminating chaos but channeling it. The apparent order of finished work masks the necessary disorder of its creation. Every clear thought emerges from a background of productive confusion, every elegant solution from a tangle of failed attempts.

Broadly, human experience is characterized by transience. Change is all that is known, much of the philosophical (and human) project is to develop systems that seem to provide “stability.” We can point to religion and science as these so-called constructed sources of stability. Religion seemingly being undressed by a reliance on “faith” and science being undressed by the necessary uncertainty in results (instability among scientific results is sanctified by the system/process, and formalized through statistics).[1]

Awareness of this broader challenge, of this systemic source of progress, enables more productive results.

beyond progress narratives

The conventional narrative suggests creative work progresses toward completion, toward resolution. This misunderstands the nature of creative states. They don’t progress toward stability but maintain productive instability.

Consider mathematical thought: it advances not through steady accumulation of certainties but through productive confusion, through the deliberate destabilization of established understanding. Every major breakthrough has required mathematicians to inhabit states of profound uncertainty, to dwell in the contradictions that signal the edges of current understanding.

multiplicity of states

Our mental states exhibit multiplicities—simultaneous, overlapping configurations that resist reduction to single descriptions. Like quantum systems before measurement, creative thoughts exist in superpositions of potential states.

This multiplicity isn’t something to be attacked with systems of habits and stifled by perceived intellect. It enables the novel connections, the unexpected insights that characterize creative work. The attempt to eliminate this multiplicity, to achieve perfect clarity or peace, would eliminate the very conditions that make creativity possible.

practical implications

This understanding suggests different approaches to creative work. Instead of seeking to eliminate uncertainty or anxiety, we might learn to inhabit it productively. Instead of pursuing clarity at all costs, we might maintain productive ambiguity long enough for novel patterns to emerge.

The goal isn’t to achieve tranquility but to maintain the right degree of instability—enough to enable new configurations while maintaining coherent structure. Like those paint swirls, our most productive mental states might be inherently temporary, existing only in transition.

embracing productive disorder

The world benefits most from minds that can maintain states of productive instability—not because they’ve achieved perfect peace or succumbed to chaos, but because they’ve learned to inhabit the space between, where entropy hasn’t yet had its final say.

This isn’t a celebration of suffering or a rejection of peace. Rather, it’s a recognition that creative (progressive) work requires us to maintain states that are, by their nature, unstable and temporary. The art lies not in achieving stability but in learning to work productively with instability, to capture the patterns that emerge in transition before they dissolve into uniformity.

I find that my existence is defined by tension between peace and anxiety, on the cusp of failure and knocking on the door of success, between an outward perceived superfluous ego and inner anatman. This perspective is an attempt to communicate a productive system of working under my own assumptions about my own experience.

[1] This paragraph on religion, philosophy, and science is perhaps too dismissive of human progress and does not provide a complete critique. One must note that it is impossible to construct a fully valid interpretation or system of understanding and that faith underpins all of any sect of the human project.