@fresco,
(A very quick post, before a fast exit. My apologies yesterday's digression , fresco. Thank you for your tolerance and patience. I should do some basic research (at least) before venturing into areas of knowledge I know little about.)
Much thanks to all for the kindly-thoughtful postings!
I've long suspected over all time the total entropy of the whole universe neither rises nor falls. When a system decays it perhaps triggers a new microscopic vacuum condition where within the system's universe the 'opportunities for order' now increases (such incremental changes are very difficult to observe and correlate with). When an organization breaks apart each surviving component (and its medium) that was once part of the organization now absorbs a tiny incremental energy that can be used to help create new (smaller) systems on its own. The net increase resulting from all the incremental energy gains always equally offsets the total entropy effects over all time and space. (It takes time to completely transition over to equilibrium so we see the rises and falls of order and disorder during the full transition.)
It's like seeing the sinusoidal motion of turbulent water waves approaching you while you watch from the beach. All you see really see are the rising waves and its whitecaps. When a rising wave starts to dip below its crest you lose sight of the wave for it is now a dropping wave. While you might think it disappeared, the real dropping wave never really disappears. Instead its water particles went to a lower energy state (from gravity's force field) picking up enough potential energy together to in turn give rise to yet another wave (releasing kinetic energy) heading toward you.
That's the way motion is in the whole universe. Its all about waves wherever energy is affected by the different manifestations of the same single underlying force that pervades the known universe.
This might be a leap here but I have a hunch the whole universe is riding on some kind of superposition energy wave that rises and falls (sum of all energies that the whole universe experiences forms this invisible superposition energy wave within the mysterious medium of space. The group velocity of such a wave might tell us where the universe is moving toward to if at all). Our known universe is maybe just a tiny particle in the wave much like how a water molecule is a tiny particle only bobbling up/down (like a bobber) in the moving water wave. The superposition wave's motion may have had no beginning and may have no end.
We can't clearly see how the dropping wave leads to the next wave (for now we mostly only see its whitecaps). We just know that stardust, planets, stars, galaxies, super clusters, etc... are all like living beings in that when they die they in turn give rise to the birth of new like entities (like how a dropping wave-front leads to a new wave-front).
