---
slug: paper-dalton-d-m-2025-the-unbecoming-of-being-thermodynamics-and-the-metaphysics-and-e
title: Dalton on Thermodynamics and the Metaphysics of Entropic Decay
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/paper-dalton-d-m-2025-the-unbecoming-of-being-thermodynamics-and-the-metaphysics-and-e
---

## What the work establishes

Drew M. Dalton's 2025 article treats the thermodynamic revolution as parallel to the Copernican one. It derives a metaphysics and ethics from the primacy of entropic decay.

Core result: unbecoming becomes the first cause and final principle of reality. Beings exist as dissipative structures oriented toward decay.

The article uses Aristotle's four causes to reframe existence around entropy. It deduces normative duty from this metaphysics.

## Exact primary work and passages

Dalton, Drew M. 2025. “The Unbecoming of Being: Thermodynamics and The Metaphysics and Ethics of Entropic Decay”. Technophany 2 (2): 1-24. DOI: 10.54195/technophany.14045.

Abstract states: “Like the Copernican revolution which initiated the Modern project, there has been a thermodynamic revolution in the empirical sciences in the last two centuries. The aim of this paper is to show how we might draw from this revolution to make new and startling metaphysical and ethical claims concerning the nature and value of reality.”

Further: “This paper proceeds to show how, from what the contemporary sciences have concluded concerning the primacy of entropic decay within reality, unbecoming might be forwarded as a new account of the essence of existence: i.e., the first cause and motivating principle of reality’s formal, material, efficient, and final nature. The paper concludes by arguing that a new and surprising account of universal ethical value and normative duty can be deduced from such a metaphysics of decay.”

These passages are verifiable in the journal abstract and citation records.

## Convergence patterns touched

The work touches entropy and decay as structural patterns. It addresses flow toward disorder and the bounded nature of order.

It engages memory and scale invariance indirectly through the universal reach of thermodynamic laws.

It confronts the Mirror Layer by placing the observer inside an entropic system where value derives from decay rather than preservation.

## Distance from the full OIP/GRAIN synthesis

The article stays at the metaphysical layer. It supplies a disconfirming alternative to naturalized ethics built on negentropy or life-affirmation.

It does not address object invocation mechanics, ledger receipts, or replay-repair loops. It supplies a speculative ground that questions any ethics of becoming or resistance to decay.

## Honest limits and disconfirming edges

The derivation of ethics from “is” remains interpretive. No empirical test distinguishes the claimed normative duty.

Reductionist accounts treat thermodynamic descriptions as sufficient without metaphysical overlay. The article acknowledges the speculative character of its ethical step.

No primary data on human behavior or ethics appears. Claims rest on textual and conceptual attribution.

## Atomic claims

- Claim c1: Dalton forwards unbecoming as the essence of existence via the four causes. Tier: speculative. Source: article abstract.
- Claim c2: A normative duty follows directly from the metaphysics of decay. Tier: speculative. Source: article abstract.
- Claim c3: The thermodynamic revolution parallels the Copernican one in scope. Tier: anecdotal. Source: article abstract.
- Claim c4: Contemporary sciences establish the primacy of entropic decay. Tier: mechanistic. Source: standard physics consensus; article cites it.

All material assertions above receive tier labels. No human data supports ethical conclusions. The synthesis lens remains external; Dalton's words stay his own.
