some highly theoretical and somewhat vague speculation - dialectic cosmology and ontology brought together with general cosmology:
The law of entropy is only a special case of a [more general] law of sustainability – the law that unsustainable structures will dissipate/disappear/disintegrate: Entropy is the law of sustainability applied to a certain level [or set of levels] of the cosmos…
And in this context, the essence of nature* is the [process of] production of sustainable** structures at ever-higher levels [of the cosmos].
*nature here seen as an non-boundaried part – or better aspect – of the cosmos & of the cosmological process. I.e. I’m not using a conception of nature that implies a boundary between the natural and unnatural.
**’sustainable’ here roughly meaning that a process re-produces or repeats itself without depleting its conditions of/for existence