Retroentropy

The unsettling feeling that order isn't moving forward, but backward. It’s the perception that systems are becoming more organized into a state that is functionally worse, more chaotic, or more oppressive. While regular entropy measures the trend toward disorder, retroentropy describes a universe where things are snapping into a horrifyingly rigid, but ultimately more useless, form of order. It’s the feeling that your computer's files aren't just getting scrambled, but are rearranging themselves into a perfect, unopenable, and menacing grid.

Example: "My room was a mess, but after my mom 'cleaned' it, I can't find anything. It’s not entropy, it’s retroentropy—a perfectly organized chaos that serves no one."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026

Retroentropy (Physics)

A hypothetical physical phenomenon where entropy—the measure of disorder—would decrease over time within a closed system, effectively running backwards. In our universe, entropy always increases (the Second Law of Thermodynamics). Retroentropy would describe a cosmos where spilled milk leaps back into the glass, smoke reassembles into a cigarette, and scrambled eggs unscramble themselves. It's the physics of a world where time flows in reverse, order emerges spontaneously from chaos, and the universe gets younger and more organized with every passing moment.

Retroentropy (Physics) Example: "Watching the DVR replay of the vase shattering and then magically reassembling, I joked that my living room must be a local zone of retroentropy."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026