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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Atheism = Untheism + Antitheism - Less Wrong
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The physical universe seems to optimize for low-energy / high-entropy states, via some kind of local decision process.
So I think your two options actually coincide.
The universe doesn't optimize entropy, it is people who make strong inferences coming out this way. See e.g. E. T. Jaynes (1988). `The Evolution of Carnot's Principle'. Maximum-Entropy and Bayesian Methods in Science and Engineering 1:267+ (PDF)
On the other hand, you can always look at how something is, and formulate an optimization problem for which the way things are is a solution, saying that "so, the system optimizes this property". This is called variational method, and it isn't terribly ontologically enlightening.