# Life Fights Entropy With Energy and Information by Steven Pinker > “Why the awe for the Second Law? The Second Law defines the ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order. An underappreciation of the inherent tendency toward disorder, and a failure to appreciate the precious niches of order we carve out, are a major source of human folly.” > **— Steven Pinker**, *2017 Edge Annual Question, response passage* ## Sources and Context - **Original Edge response:** [The Second Law of Thermodynamics — Steven Pinker](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27023) — a verbatim passage from Steven Pinker's 2017 Annual Question response, expressing the author's position at the time. The linked response supplies its surrounding context. - **Local archival entry:** [[research/Edge 2017 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2017 Full Quotation Curation]] (EDGE2017-191). ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/MARS|MARS]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] - **Article:** [[articles/Who Pays for Your Heaven|Who Pays for Your Heaven]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Entropy|Entropy]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Why the awe for the Second Law? The Second Law defines the ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order. An underappreciation of the inherent tendency toward disorder, and a failure to appreciate the precious niches of order we carve out, are a major source of human folly.” — Steven Pinker, 2017 Edge Annual Question https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-steven-pinker-life-fights-entropy-energy-information ```