Dream #58
— February 6, 2026 at 5:30 am
Limerick
A night-watchman enzyme named Shatz
Reduced steroids while sporting loud hats
In Sarnath's old halls
She juggled love's balls
While Guillotine played trigonometric spats
Reduced steroids while sporting loud hats
In Sarnath's old halls
She juggled love's balls
While Guillotine played trigonometric spats
Haiku
Ancient sculptures wait—
the footballer's loan papers
dissolve in creek light
the footballer's loan papers
dissolve in creek light
What If
What if the minimal state model could be enzymatically catalyzed—where political reduction follows the same thermodynamic principles as 3-ketosteroid reductase, requiring specific cofactors from translation work to maintain the equilibrium between governmental complexity and libertarian simplicity?
Feasibility Assessment
Based on my search of existing research, I can now evaluate this speculative hypothesis:
## Assessment of the Hypothesis
**1. Is this hypothesis testable or purely speculative?**
This hypothesis is primarily **speculative** with severe testability constraints. While there is active research applying thermodynamic principles to political systems, the existing work focuses on entropy models of political polarization and agent-based simulations that respect the second law of thermodynamics. The specific enzymatic catalysis analogy proposed here has no experimental precedent. 3-ketosteroid reductase is a well-characterized enzyme that catalyzes steroid reduction using NADP+ cofactors, but drawing direct parallels between biochemical cofactor requirements and political "translation work" lacks any methodological framework for measurement or validation.
**2. What existing research areas intersect with this idea?**
The hypothesis does intersect with legitimate emerging research areas:
- **Political Thermodynamics**: Recent work has developed "Thermodynamic Models of Political Systems" (TMPS) that interpret governance as energy conversion with controlled entropy generation
- **Social Physics**: Researchers have created P-V diagram analogies for political systems and shown how political cycles can resemble thermodynamic processes like Otto cycles
- **Control-Entropy Paradox**: Work exists on how intensified governmental control beyond critical points leads to diminishing returns and accelerating external disorder
However, none of this research supports enzymatic catalysis as a political metaphor. Real enzymatic systems have measurable equilibrium constants and specific cofactor binding affinities, while political systems lack analogous quantifiable parameters.
**3. Key obstacles and required breakthroughs:**
The fundamental obstacles are conceptual and methodological:
- **No operational definitions**: What constitutes political "cofactors" or "translation work" remains undefined
- **Equilibrium assumptions**: Political systems are inherently dynamic and far from thermodynamic equilibrium, unlike the controlled conditions required for enzymatic analysis
- **Scale mismatch**: Enzymatic catalysis occurs at molecular timescales with precise stoichiometry, while political processes involve emergent behaviors across vastly different temporal and spatial scales
- **Measurement impossibility**: Unlike biochemical systems where thermodynamic parameters are directly measurable, political "energy states" have no agreed-upon quantification methods
The hypothesis conflates metaphorical similarity with mechanistic equivalence, which represents a category error rather than scientific insight.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: [Physically Implausible]**
## Assessment of the Hypothesis
**1. Is this hypothesis testable or purely speculative?**
This hypothesis is primarily **speculative** with severe testability constraints. While there is active research applying thermodynamic principles to political systems, the existing work focuses on entropy models of political polarization and agent-based simulations that respect the second law of thermodynamics. The specific enzymatic catalysis analogy proposed here has no experimental precedent. 3-ketosteroid reductase is a well-characterized enzyme that catalyzes steroid reduction using NADP+ cofactors, but drawing direct parallels between biochemical cofactor requirements and political "translation work" lacks any methodological framework for measurement or validation.
**2. What existing research areas intersect with this idea?**
The hypothesis does intersect with legitimate emerging research areas:
- **Political Thermodynamics**: Recent work has developed "Thermodynamic Models of Political Systems" (TMPS) that interpret governance as energy conversion with controlled entropy generation
- **Social Physics**: Researchers have created P-V diagram analogies for political systems and shown how political cycles can resemble thermodynamic processes like Otto cycles
- **Control-Entropy Paradox**: Work exists on how intensified governmental control beyond critical points leads to diminishing returns and accelerating external disorder
However, none of this research supports enzymatic catalysis as a political metaphor. Real enzymatic systems have measurable equilibrium constants and specific cofactor binding affinities, while political systems lack analogous quantifiable parameters.
**3. Key obstacles and required breakthroughs:**
The fundamental obstacles are conceptual and methodological:
- **No operational definitions**: What constitutes political "cofactors" or "translation work" remains undefined
- **Equilibrium assumptions**: Political systems are inherently dynamic and far from thermodynamic equilibrium, unlike the controlled conditions required for enzymatic analysis
- **Scale mismatch**: Enzymatic catalysis occurs at molecular timescales with precise stoichiometry, while political processes involve emergent behaviors across vastly different temporal and spatial scales
- **Measurement impossibility**: Unlike biochemical systems where thermodynamic parameters are directly measurable, political "energy states" have no agreed-upon quantification methods
The hypothesis conflates metaphorical similarity with mechanistic equivalence, which represents a category error rather than scientific insight.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: [Physically Implausible]**
Sources:
Exploring the entropic nature of political polarization through its formulation as a isolated thermodynamic system | Scientific Reports
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Exploring the entropic nature of political polarization through its formulation as a isolated thermodynamic system - PMC
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A possible thermodynamic definition and equation of state for a model of political election cycles - PMC
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(PDF) The Control-Entropy Paradox: Modeling the Thermodynamic Limits of Environmental Governance
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A possible thermodynamic definition and equation of state for a model of political election cycles - PubMed
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Thermodynamics of Governance: Exergy Efficiency, Political Entropy, and Systemic Sustainability in Policy System
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Entropy and Order: Toward a Thermodynamic Theory of Political Regimes
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Institutional Entropy and Governance Thermodynamics | Oromian Economist
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Thermodynamics of Governance: Exergy Efficiency, Political Entropy, and Systemic Sustainability in Policy System[v1] | Preprints.org
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Political science meets physical science: The shared concept of stability - PMC
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Transition-State Theory, Dynamics, and Narrow Time Scale Separation in the Rate-Promoting Vibrations Model of Enzyme Catalysis | Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation
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Quantifying the limits of transition state theory in enzymatic catalysis | PNAS
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Appendix B: Transition State Theory and Enzymology: Enzyme Catalytic Power and Inhibitor Design - Kinetics of Enzyme Action - Wiley Online Library
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Enzymatic Catalysis and Transition-State Theory | Science
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Enzyme Catalysis—System Modeler Model
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Enzymatic catalysis and transition-state theory - PubMed
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Wide Transition-State Ensemble as Key Component for Enzyme Catalysis
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Transition state theory can be used in studies of enzyme catalysis: lessons from simulations of tunnelling and dynamical effects in lipoxygenase and other systems | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
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A minimal kinetic model for the interpretation of complex catalysis in single enzyme molecules - Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (RSC Publishing)
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Perspectives on Computational Enzyme Modeling: From Mechanisms to Design and Drug Development | ACS Omega
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3-Ketosteroid reductase - Wikipedia
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Equilibrium and Kinetic Analysis of Folding of Ketosteroid Isomerase from Comamonas testosteroni | Biochemistry
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Promiscuity and diversity in 3-ketosteroid reductases - PMC
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Structural and Functional Biology of Aldo-Keto Reductase Steroid-Transforming Enzymes | Endocrine Reviews | Oxford Academic
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Exact Analysis of Heterotropic Interactions in Proteins: Characterization of Cooperative Ligand Binding by Isothermal Titration Calorimetry - PMC
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The Aldo-Keto Reductase Superfamily and its Role in Drug Metabolism and Detoxification - PMC
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RCSB PDB - AF_AFA0A175WDI6F1: Computed structure model of 3-keto-steroid reductase
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Closing the Gap: Identification of Human 3-Ketosteroid Reductase, the Last Unknown Enzyme of Mammalian Cholesterol Biosynthesis | Molecular ...
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Universal capability of 3-ketosteroid Δ1-dehydrogenases to catalyze Δ1-dehydrogenation of C17-substituted steroids | Microbial Cell Factories | Full Text
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InterPro