Cosmological natural selection and the purpose of the universe

Complexity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 48-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Gardner ◽  
Joseph P. Conlon
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Cosmological Natural Selection ◽  
The Universe

scholarly journals Entropy and Selection: Life as an Adaptation for Universe Replication

Complexity ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Price
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Complex Order ◽  
Cosmological Natural Selection ◽  
Selection For ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Biological Selection ◽  
Intelligent Life

Natural selection is the strongest known antientropic process in the universe when operating at the biological level and may also operate at the cosmological level. Consideration of how biological natural selection creates adaptations may illuminate the consequences and significance of cosmological natural selection. An organismal trait is more likely to constitute an adaptation if characterized by more improbable complex order, and such order is the hallmark of biological selection. If the same is true of traits created by selection in general, then the more improbably ordered something is (i.e., the lower its entropy), the more likely it is to be a biological or cosmological adaptation. By this logic, intelligent life (as the least-entropic known entity) is more likely than black holes or anything else to be an adaptation designed by cosmological natural selection. This view contrasts with Smolin’s suggestion that black holes are an adaptation designed by cosmological natural selection and that life is the by-product of selection for black holes. Selection may be the main or only ultimate antientropic process in the universe/multiverse; that is, much or all observed order may ultimately be the product or by-product of biological and cosmological selection.

Randomness and Complexity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven E. Vigdor
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Rna World ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Variable Theory ◽  
Cosmological Natural Selection ◽  
Einstein Podolsky Rosen ◽  
World Hypothesis ◽  
Rna World Hypothesis

Chapter 7 describes the fundamental role of randomness in quantum mechanics, in generating the first biomolecules, and in biological evolution. Experiments testing the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox have demonstrated, via Bell’s inequalities, that no local hidden variable theory can provide a viable alternative to quantum mechanics, with its fundamental randomness built in. Randomness presumably plays an equally important role in the chemical assembly of a wide array of polymer molecules to be sampled for their ability to store genetic information and self-replicate, fueling the sort of abiogenesis assumed in the RNA world hypothesis of life’s beginnings. Evidence for random mutations in biological evolution, microevolution of both bacteria and antibodies and macroevolution of the species, is briefly reviewed. The importance of natural selection in guiding the adaptation of species to changing environments is emphasized. A speculative role of cosmological natural selection for black-hole fecundity in the evolution of universes is discussed.

scholarly journals Innovation from a Memetic and Evolutionary Perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-15
Author(s):  
Andrej Drapal
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Fundamental Mechanism

Innovation happens all around the Universe and is a fundamental mechanism of evolution. Living creatures cannot but exist and develop through innovation. Innovation happens through mutations that make sense in retrospect only. Natural selection makes certain mutations as beneficial and other as something that was already forgotten. As much as genes serve as quantized smaller units where innovation takes place in physical bodies, memes serve as basic quantized units of human culture. Memes as second replicators to genes obey similar laws of evolution and thus innovation as genes. Innovation can be propagated only by removing obstacles on one side and by allowing mutations to emerge as long as they do not destroy identity.

scholarly journals EMAAN: An Evolutionary Multiverse Argument against Naturalism

Symposion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Ward Blondé ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Evolutionarily Conserved ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Cosmological Natural Selection

In this paper, an evolutionary multiverse argument against naturalism (EMAAN) is presented: E1. In an evolutionary multiverse, phenomena have variable evolutionary ages. E2. After some time T, the development of the empirical sciences will be evolutionarily conserved. E3. The phenomena with an evolutionary age above T are methodologically supernatural. Entities are classified according to whether they are (1) physical and spatiotemporal, (2) causally efficacious, and (3) either observed by or explanatorily necessary for the empirical sciences. While the conjunction of (1) and (2) is taken to be sufficient for existence in reality, the negation of (3) defines methodological supernaturalness. EMAAN uses a generalization of evolutionary theory, namely cosmological natural selection, to argue that phenomena evolve that fulfill conditions (1) and (2), but not (3). This shows that methodologically supernatural phenomena have a clear epistemology according to a theory that is grounded in the commitments of naturalism. Supernatural phenomena are not observed by the empirical sciences because the empirical sciences themselves are supernaturally guided and predestined to develop according to an evolutionarily conserved plan. In spite of this scientific plan, there is room for afterlives and supernaturality in the everyday experience.

scholarly journals Between a Rock and a Living Place: Natural Selection of Elements and the Search for Life in the Universe

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Betül Kaçar ◽  
Ariel D. Anbar ◽  
Amanda K. Garcia ◽  
Lance C. Seefeldt ◽  
Kurt O. Konhauser
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Selection Of

scholarly journals Human Development X: Explanation of Macroevolution — Top-Down Evolution Materializes Consciousness. The Origin of Metamorphosis

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1656-1666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyge Dahl Hermansen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Complex Dynamic ◽  
Complex Dynamic Systems ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
The Universe

In this paper, we first give a short discussion of the macroevolution viewing life as information-directed, complex, dynamic systems. On this basis, we give our explanation of the origin of life and discuss the top-down evolution of molecules, proteins, and macroevolution. We discuss these subjects according to our new holistic biological paradigm. In view of this, we discuss the macroevolution of the organism, the species, the biosphere, and human society. After this, we discuss the shift in evolution from natural selection to a new proposed process of nature called the “metamorphous top-down” evolution. We discuss the capability of the evolutionary shift to govern some of the processes that lead to the formation of new species. We discuss the mechanisms we think are behind this proposed shift in evolution and conclude that this event is able to explain the huge biological diversity of nature in combination with evolutionary natural selection. We also discuss this event of nature as an isolated, but integrated, part of the universe. We propose the most important genetic and biochemical process that we think is behind the evolutionary shift as a complicated symbiosis of mechanisms leading to metamorphosis in all biological individuals, from bacteria to humans. The energetic superorbital that manifests the consciousness governs all these processes through quantum chemical activity. This is the key to evolutionary shift through the consciousness, and we propose to call this process “adult human metamorphosis”.

Cosmological Natural Selection

2021 ◽  
pp. 256-262
Author(s):  
Howard Burton ◽  
Lee Smolin
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Cosmological Natural Selection

Evolution by Blind Chance

1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-360
Author(s):  
Barrie Britton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
World Views ◽  
Literal Interpretation ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Universe

Ever since Charles Darwin first published his revolutionary book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, there has been considerable disagreement among Christians concerning both the truth of evolutionary theory and its possible reconciliation with the Bible. Some Christians have taken the so-called ‘fundamentalist creationist’ position believing in a literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis. Others have adopted so-called ‘theistic evolutionist’ views accepting to various different degrees Darwinian ideas about origins. One point however on which most Christians (and indeed non-Christians) are agreed, is that an evolutionary process based on blind chance must necessarily conflict with all possible theistic world views and stands irreconcilable with the biblical text. It is this assertion which in this essay I hope to refute, as based on misunderstanding of the meaning of blind chance, of the mechanism of evolution and of the involvement of God in the universe.

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