timtyler comments on In Praise of Boredom - Less Wrong
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This line of reasoning is intuitive, but, I believe, wrong. Destroying energy gradients is actively selected for in lots of ways. For example, it actively deprives competitors of resources. Organisms compete to dissipate sources of order by reaching them quicky and eliminating before others can. The picture of entropy as an inconvenient side effect seems attractive initially, but doesn't withstand close inspection.
I don't deny that properly functioning brains act like hedonic maximisers. Hedonic maximisation is a much weaker explanatory principle than entropy maximisation, though. The latter explains why water flows downhill. Hedonic maximisation is a narrow and weak idea - by comparison.