Negentropy symbol — J, the measure of order in living systems

The Organizing Principle of My Life

Living the Scientific Process through Negentropy

▶ Click the symbol to hear the 1989 CAUSE Conference presentation — 5-minute introduction

A scientist who spent a career building order in disordered systems — now looking back and recognizing the unifying physical principle that governed every chapter of that work.

In thermodynamics, entropy is the natural tendency of any system to drift toward disorder, randomness, and disorganization. Negentropy — negative entropy — is the force that resists that drift. It is the organizing principle of living systems. Every organism, every institution, every act of teaching is, at its core, a struggle against entropy.

This documentary is the evidentiary record of that struggle across six decades — from Cold War radiation biophysics at the University of Iowa and the University of Illinois, through a decade of institutional reinvention in Chicago, to twenty years of transforming academic computing at three universities. The institutions changed. The entropy was always the same problem. The methodology was always the same response.

The scientific framework governing this work was not retrospectively applied. It was present from the beginning — in the thermodynamics and bioenergetics taught at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, in James G. Miller's living systems theory studied at the same institution, and in the 1989 CAUSE National Conference paper that named the methodology explicitly: Towards Negative Entropy: A Strategic Plan.

What follows is the forensic record of a living system in pursuit of order.

Teaching as Negentropy in Practice

I spent forty years teaching across eight institutions. The subjects ranged from radiation biophysics to computer literacy, but the work was always the same at its core. A classroom is a high-entropy environment — students arrive with unorganized information, incomplete frameworks, and unconnected concepts. The instructor's job is to impose order on that disorder. Not performance. Not inspiration. Order.

In science, entropy is the natural drift toward randomness. Teaching is the deliberate resistance to that drift. If the cause-and-effect chain is laid out clearly enough, students find their footing. The confusion decreases. The system moves toward order. That is not a metaphor — it is what actually happens in a well-structured course.

The documentary record of these teaching assignments spans eight institutions:

  • University of Iowa College of Medicine
    Pre-doctoral Instructor     1959–1963
  • University of Illinois College of Medicine
    Assistant Professor     1963–1968
  • Johnson C. Smith University
    Associate Professor     1979–1984
  • Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte, NC
    Part-time Instructor     1982–1983
  • Winthrop University
    Associate Professor     1984–1995
  • Medical University of South Carolina
    Contracted Adjunct Professor     Jan–Apr 1992
  • Limestone College of South Carolina
    Contracted Adjunct Professor     May 1995
  • Northeastern Illinois University
    Instructor, Computer Literacy for Administrators and Faculty     1995–2004

The titles varied. The institutional contexts differed. The work was consistent: push back against disorder and leave the environment more structured than I found it.

Project Manifesto

This documentary is a systematic, evidentiary investigation into the intersections of scientific inquiry and educational experience across six decades of American institutional life.

It is not a conventional career retrospective. It is a dual-layered narrative that treats memory as data and insight as evidence. Every chapter functions as a documented exhibit of history, followed by a scientific and educational reflection on its lasting impact. The same discipline that drove the laboratory work — define the problem, examine the evidence, test the hypothesis, state the conclusion — governs the retrospective analysis of the life itself.

The record spans Cold War radiation biophysics and CIA analytical work, a decade of reinvention through information technology, and twenty years of institutional transformation at three universities. The methodology remained constant throughout. The institutions changed. The entropy was always the same problem. The solution always began with evidence.

Layer I

The Documentary Layer

The objective record. Archival documents, primary sources, institutional correspondence, photographs, and factual chronologies. The grounded reality of what occurred within the systems of science and education.

Layer II

The Reflection Layer

The subjective inquiry. The retrospective analysis — the scientific and philosophical weight of those events examined through a mature, forensic lens. The evidence interpreted, not merely presented.

The Five Chapters

"This documentary treats memory as data and insight as evidence. Every chapter is a documented exhibit of history — followed by a scientific reflection on its lasting impact."

William J. Moressi, Ph.D.  ·  Chicago, Illinois  ·  2025