CONCEPT
Dissipative Structures
Organized patterns that emerge in systems far from equilibrium by channeling energy flows — Ilya Prigogine's framework for how order arises through flux, providing the physics for Segal's dam metaphor.
Dissipative structures, formalized by Ilya Prigogine in the 1960s and 70s, are organized configurations that emerge and persist in systems through which energy flows. A flame is a dissipative structure: it channels chemical energy into heat and light in a self-sustaining pattern. A hurricane is a dissipative structure: it organizes atmospheric energy differentials into coherent rotational flow. A living cell is a dissipative structure: it maintains its complexity by channeling chemical energy through metabolic pathways. All require continuous energy throughput; all exist far from equilibrium; all demonstrate that order can emerge spontaneously through flow rather than requiring a builder. For the AI transition, dissipative structures are the dams that channel avalanches: AI Practice frameworks, educational reforms, labor protections — structures that don't block the flow of capability but redirect it toward configurations that sustain human flourishing.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Prigogine's work overthrew the classical thermodynamic assumption that the second law of thermodynamics (entropy always increases) meant the