The first law of thermodynamics tells us that the total amount of energy in the universe never changes. It is conserved. Our universe seems to have arrived with a fixed potential for things to happen. So the first law is really telling us about the primordial ocean of possibilities. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the things that emerge from the ocean of possibilities can be more or less structured, like the ripples in a stream. But we should expect most of them to be less structured and become even less structured over time. That is because most possible arrangements of matter
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