How fundamental is Darwinian evolution? by Paul Knott

Dr. Knott:

Part of your suggestion is that life considerations can suggest fundamental principles. Just so. (see my essay).

Another suggestion is that emergence (not reductionism) is fundamental. But you address only a small part of the emergence process see STOE emergence.

Dear Paul,

thank you for your answer, I'll try to be clearer, sorry. But your answer already helps me.

> On the one hand, in the essay I argued that the principle of generalised evolution holds by definition, which means that there can't be anything simpler and more fundamental that leads to it. If something is correct by definition, then it doesn't need a deeper explanation.

Do you mean this in a similar sense as "2+2=4", more as an axiom or like a self-evident empirical truth?

> I would argue that the nature of laws and constituents of the universe that we normally call fundamental (the standard model, general relativity, etc) directly lead to the evolution of complex structures. I.e. if you knew all the fundamental laws, and if you knew the state of the fundamental constituents (particles etc) in the universe, then you could derive that complexity would emerge.

In this sense evolution is a necessary consequence of more fundamental laws, like the one you quote above?

> I think this nicely highlights that there isn't always a single answer the question of what is fundamental, and we can take different viewpoints to find different fundamental explanations.

I agree, my text has similar consequences as well. Congrats for your essay!

Francesco

Dear DR Paul Knott,

FQXI is clearly seeking to find out if there is a fundamental REALITY.

Reliable evidence exists that proves that the surface of the earth was formed millions of years before man and his utterly complex finite informational systems ever appeared on that surface. It logically follows that Nature must have permanently devised the only single physical construct of earth allowable.

All objects, be they solid, liquid, or vaporous have always had a visible surface. This is because the real Universe must consist only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

Only the truth can set you free.

Joe Fisher, Realist

Dear Paul Knott,

You adopted the belief-based Big Bang theory as if Darwin's principle of evolution did also start from nothing. I already asked here in vain someone else why Max Born did reject ideas by Robertson which are now accepted. Maybe, you can answer this.

Why didn't you deal with the actual and the expected evolution? In an earlier contest I wrote an essay "Towards more reasonable evolution", see [3].

Eckard Blumschein

Hello Paul,

I support the direction of your conclusions. I hope you may be interested in further refinement of the naturally evolving and universally defined world complexity in my essay here, within a similar general framework (see also my web site).

Dear Paul,

well...I'm not convinced...

While we can tell a rather consistent, well documented and reasonable story running from early antiquity to the standard model of elementary particles, the reverse story is not only littered with wonders (called emergence) compared to which the turning of water into wine appears like hobby sorcery, but also falls victim to the argument from ancestrality. That means, either you erase your brain before talking of the early universe (which you cannot) or say that the evolving universe is the belief of that early 21st species that can be traced back to early antiquity. What you certainly cannot do is positively describing (even in terms of principles) the universe as it REALLY was, became or is.

Heinrich

Dear Paul,

thank you for your answers!

bests,

Francesco

Paul,

I was interested in your thesis as I derived 'quantum evolution' and learning (to give 'intent') in my essay last year. I enjoyed your original approach and forthright attempt to prove a rather slippery proposition, then also that it's fundamental. Not a bad job, nicely written and argued if not entirely convincing.

I agree a lot, certainly; "removing the somewhat arbitrary divisions between the sciences we will see that a deeper level of explanation exists" as a wider truth, and that

"general relativity and the standard model of particle physics - are likely to only be approximations of some deeper laws."

Also with much about evolution, though the 'stability' concept is a little semantic & could be argued both ways, as mutation itself is instability! You also you make unsupported assumptions; A Big Bang (forgivable) but then; "if we randomly arrange the particles in the universe it is unlikely that something worthy of performing a "measurement" would exist". which you'd need to define 'measurement' to rely on. Does it requite the outcome information to be 'processed & analysed'!? What if 'measurement' was just interaction and momentum exchange, and maybe even the same mechanism which produces mutation!?

Which brings me to mutation. By your own definition and argument is not the quantum scale process itself clearly more fundamental and universal than general or Darwinist evolution? Sure, we may not understand it yet, or maybe we do! What if an RNA reproduction 'switch' particle interacts on the 'equator' when the DNA must decide right or left polarity? Or inversely decide up/down spin precisely at a pole!? (My own essay does derive a shocking classical QM from that, which I hope you'll dare comment on!)

So I'm unconvinced on fundamentality. Yet as I remind others 'agreement' isn't a scoring criteria so I have you down for a high score.

An interesting proposal, very well written and argued.

Best wishes in the contest

Peter

I also enede with those qualitative questions why and how in my essay https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3093

I Think they are extremely important and neglected. They say in math formulations that 2+2= 3 or 5, and are maybe one important drive for why Changes are made.

I have studied the Maxwell Deamon and other questions to get an answer on natural selection, and I Think I can be secure saying Darwinism and natural selection are NOT fundamental drives.

Thanks for a nice story.

Ulla Mattfolk

Dear Paul,

As you rightly noticed, my doubt is of a more general nature. The trouble with evolution is that it is truly objective, i.e. occupies a vantage point that no subject can ever take. Now, science, if anything, seems to be a process of 'objectification' - so what's wrong here? Well, the 'objectivity' of, say, Newton's laws is entirely different from that of the theory of natural evolution. Newton's theory is inter-subjective in as much everyone equipped with a meter stick and a clock can try to falsify or simply use it, and all will come up with the same results. Further, Newton's theory is intuitive, i.e. we (all of us) a priori know that filling more powder into the cannon will make the cannon ball fly farther. And as also we all know doesn't Newton's apple fall in TIME, since there is no TIME to be found in the equations of motion. On the other hand, any theory of evolution is truly objective in as much it describes 'the world' from the object's point of view, which no subject ever can occupy for the reason that humans have no historical sense in addition to vision, hearing, etc. The object freed from inter-subjectivity is automatically an object in TIME, however; where else could it be moved to where we want to have it. This is what Hegel meant when he said that Spirit falls into TIME when he loses his concept. The concept is inter-subjective though, aka knowledge.

Ideas of evolution - in being truly objective - fail on inter-subjectivity, which is why there are as many theories of natural evolution as there are biologists, and as many stories of the Big Bang as there are cosmologists. Now, coming full circle, any theory of evolution is subjective (as the term is commonly used) by being truly objective, i.e. object-in-TIME centered, rather than inter-subjective. This is why I said that telling the story of the universe as it TRULY evolved, would require you to erase your brain first. Because, in order to OBJECTIVELY argue temporally forward from say tau=1e-6 sec after BB, rather than from one's armchair, one should through any knowledge beyond the standard model over board - and obviously get stuck. Since, however, scientists understanding the standard model while being ignorant of consciousness, biology, chemistry and solid state physics cannot possibly exist, ideas of evolution just reify the reversed history of scientific discoveries.

Sorry for so many words! If, instead of being mostly Darwinians, we were mostly Parmenideans, my reply simply would have been: time is an illusion.

Heinrich

Dear Paul,

- I assume that the universe, and all the objects in it, exist independent of subjective observers

* The ancient Greeks entertained a universe of crystalline spheres; Newton gave us gravitation, making crystalline spheres unnecessary; Einstein gave us distortion of space-time by mass doing away with action at a distance. Mr. Zweistein in 2055 will give us...doing away with space-time. So, at least by means of induction I have shown that an observer-independent universe is elusive.

The elegant and stringent answer is of course 'Kant', e.g. the a priori conditions of the possibility of experience (space, time and causation).

- I also assume that the universe existed in the past

* Isn't TIME the domain in which we lie? A good lie, then, is one that claims a past not contradicting the present. The number of good lies though is extremely high, particularly when there are no witnesses left...Another important requirement for a good lie is NO MIRACLES!

- I can then ask the question: what was the universe like in the past? Using our best current theories, our best guess is that 10e-6 sec after BB the universe was a sea of quarks...

* See above (Sincerely, I'm not here suggesting that you're lying in any amoral sense!) Tempus systems were added to archaic languages at about 1000-500 BC, but remained restricted to lyrics, epos and tale telling until historiography in the 18/19th century laid claim to scientific status. The idea that there is something like a universal history of mankind is a unique idea of European romanticism, which Darwin extended to nature in general. Lying in this 'scientific' sense about the past has become conventional, but remained dogmatic (other than Newton's laws!).

- I can then argue about how, eventually, these quarks came to form complex life (ie my essay)

* See above: too many miracles (emergences). Try to tell a friend what you did last week involving one two 'emergences' and see what happens.

Some of your comments particularly confuse me:

- [As we know] doesn't Newton's apple fall in TIME, since there is no TIME to be found in the equations of motion. HL

There is an equation of motion that governs how the apple moves in time?

* A falling apple can be observed for the reason that in the sentence: "The apple falls" nothing is moving. Likewise is the result of the equations of motion a trajectory or an orbit, a geometrical figure in general, which neither moves itself nor any of its parts.

- there are as many theories of natural evolution as there are biologists, and as many stories of the Big Bang as there are cosmologists. HL

In my understanding, in terms of the general details there is 1 commonly agreed upon theory of natural evolution, and 1 commonly agreed upon story of the Big Bang. Of course there is disagreement at the edges of the theories, but as with every theory it's likely that these will be ironed out with time.

* Try to tell your friend how you passed the exam with all the details missing...

- any theory of evolution is subjective (as the term is commonly used) by being truly objective, i.e. object-in-TIME centered, rather than inter-subjective [as e.g. Newton's laws]. This is why I said that telling the story of the universe as it TRULY evolved, would require you to erase your brain first. HL

I struggle to see how the former sentence implies the second?

* The point is indeed difficile. Let me try an analogy: Wouldn't it be a farce when the head of the university's mathematics department dresses up like a student, passes the exam summa cum laude+++ and then says: I knew it's absolutely straight forward and simple. The point is, the professor cannot recover the status of a student. They experience different mathematical 'worlds'. The universe at tau 1e-6 as it Really was, wasn't given to anyone - so back to top of post.

Have a nice weekend,

Heinrich