That is cool post. I have a question about this:
No physical laws specifically prohibit an incident from happening in one direction or another, as long as no other laws affect or prevent it from doing so
So certain equations are not reversible, like the heat equation. How do you reconcile that with the above?
Heat (temprature) itself too, is an emergent property. It doesn't exist when you go down to the individual atoms. It's a property that happens on the macroscopic when there are lots of atoms bouncing around, a measurement of their average kinetic energies.
I slightly mentioned that when talking about the "spilled milk" example and I quote:
...what forces can prevent it from going back. Well, we got gravity of course, air pressure, surface tention, and of course the dissipated kinetic energy, to name a few. The point is, not a single reason you can find that itself isn't emergent.
So, for sure. Temprature as an emergent property does interfere with the reversal for the macroscopic. It's part of the "pile-up" I talked about, but it's not fundamental. 🙂