On Mon, 9 Jul 2001, Mark Burch wrote:
> >
> > |How about:
> > |A resource is something that is lower in entropy relative to the user.
> > Well, that is probably too vague. A forest has probably a higher entropy
> > than me, still I would call it a resource.
The forest is not the resource; the wood is the resource. You are right,
the forest has a higher entropy than you, that is why it takes work to
extract the wood from the forest.
> > For now, I have decided to use a quite general definition, that is also
> > applicable to non-human living systems:
> >
> > ``Resources are the physical components of the environment that can
> > sustain or benefit living systems''
> >
Resources can sustain or benefit living systems because the resources are
lower in entropy relative to the living systems. It is a question of
concentration versus dispersion. A physical component of the environment
cannot sustain anything if it is too dispersed or if it takes too much
energy to extract it. It is also a question of scale. Your feces is not a
resource to you but it is a resource to bacteria. It all comes back to
entropy.
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