But this understanding is precisely what I object to, spunketts, on the understanding that one cannot "step twice into the same river." The arrow of time makes this sort of thing impossible. There is no such thing as "same" if time has elapsed between two measurements.
You also wrote: "...even with more, or less irreversiblity, the difference occurs as heat in the surroundings. If I'm using my mind, the chair will get warm."
But not to a degree that we discover by experience, but only by the second law. Yet the late, great Harvard biologist Gaylord Simpson (among others) has noted that living systems are precisely those systems which are not fully subject to the second law of thermodynamics. Indeed, the fact that they are not so subject is precisely what identifies them as "living" systems. Inorganic, or non-living systems are fully subject. But they are not alive.
So again, I refer you to the quandary: What is the "difference" between the two states, "working" or non-working?" (Which is analogously the same difference between "living" vs. "non-living" states.) I submit the answer to this question cannot be given by a precise and exhaustive inventory of the parts, or subsystems, taken singly or in any combination....
Thanks for writing, spunketts!
If he said that, he was wrong. But I strongly suspect he never said that.
I suspect that, as usual, you misquoted or misunderstood what an actual scientist said, what he meant, or what he implied in trying to teach his usual set of students. I suggest, you provide us with a link to the actual quote where you believe he stated this nonsense.
I don't know what Simpson actually said, but the way you said it is wrong. The 2 LoT applies always and everywhere. Living things accumulate order by harnessing energy from the Sun or food, but this necessarily increases the entropy outside the living thing. Remember that the entropy of a closed system increases, but that living things require stuff from outside them to live. No sun and plants die. No energy-rich sulfur compounds and the microbes around the undersea vents die. No food and we die.
Time is a coordinate. There is no arrow, or direction to time in flat space. Time is symmetrical there. I think you are referring to unsymmetrical dynamics of an assembly, or arrangement which is progressing from one state to another. The state properties change. Those are the observables. Now any to systems with the same state properties are the same, regardless of time. That's why any two, or more systems can be compared and be noted to have the same state properties. Even one system can be measured repeatedly and found to have the same values. The values for any particular elements of the system are irrelevant.
"the late, great Harvard biologist Gaylord Simpson (among others) has noted that living systems are precisely those systems which are not fully subject to the second law of thermodynamics."
Regardless of his greatness, he's wrong. The 2nd law applies to all living systems. The fact that part of the system has been ignored is very important to note here, because the whole system shows that the 2nd law does in fact apply.
"I submit the answer to this question cannot be given by a precise and exhaustive inventory of the parts, or subsystems, taken singly or in any combination."
I'll have to stick with my original statement, because there's still no reason to doubt it. What's missing in the the above quote is that the elements of the set of parts have properties which determine the interactions and dynamics that are the essence of life. Conservation of energy, the consistency of essence of the particles at this temperature and reversability in the observables of the configuraiton leave no room for doubt, that the machinery of life is physical and that no nonphysical life giving force is required, or needed to result in "being alive".