A New Law of Nature Attempts to Explain the Complexity of the Universe

Kauffman argues that biologic improvement is frankincense perpetually creating not conscionable caller types of organisms but caller possibilities for organisms, ones that not only did not beryllium astatine an earlier shape of improvement but could not perchance person existed. From nan crockery of single-celled organisms that constituted life connected Earth 3 cardinal years ago, nary elephant could person abruptly emerged—this required a full big of preceding, contingent but circumstantial innovations.

However, location is nary theoretical limit to nan number of uses an entity has. This intends that nan quality of caller functions successful improvement can’t beryllium predicted—and yet immoderate caller functions tin dictate nan very rules of really nan strategy evolves subsequently. “The biosphere is creating its ain possibilities,” Kauffman said. “Not only do we not cognize what will happen, we don’t moreover cognize what tin happen.” Photosynthesis was specified a profound development; truthful were eukaryotes, tense systems and language. As nan microbiologist Carl Woese and nan physicist Nigel Goldenfeld put it successful 2011, “We request an further group of rules describing nan improvement of nan original rules. But this precocious level of rules itself needs to evolve. Thus, we extremity up pinch an infinite hierarchy.”

The physicist Paul Davies of Arizona State University agrees that biologic improvement “generates its ain extended anticipation abstraction which cannot beryllium reliably predicted aliases captured via immoderate deterministic process from anterior states. So life evolves partially into nan unknown.”

Mathematically, a “phase space” is simply a measurement of describing each imaginable configurations of a beingness system, whether it’s arsenic comparatively elemental arsenic an idealized pendulum aliases arsenic analyzable arsenic each nan atoms comprising nan Earth. Davies and his co-workers person precocious suggested that improvement successful an expanding accessible shape abstraction mightiness beryllium formally balanced to nan “incompleteness theorems” devised by nan mathematician Kurt Gödel. Gödel showed that immoderate strategy of axioms successful mathematics permits nan formulation of statements that can’t beryllium shown to beryllium existent aliases false. We tin only determine specified statements by adding caller axioms.

Davies and colleagues opportunity that, arsenic pinch Gödel’s theorem, nan cardinal facet that makes biologic improvement open-ended and prevents america from being capable to definitive it successful a self-contained and all-encompassing shape abstraction is that it is self-referential: The quality of caller actors successful nan abstraction feeds backmost connected those already location to create caller possibilities for action. This isn’t nan lawsuit for beingness systems, which, moreover if they have, say, millions of stars successful a galaxy, are not self-referential.

“An summation successful complexity provides nan early imaginable to find caller strategies unavailable to simpler organisms,” said Marcus Heisler, a works developmental biologist astatine nan University of Sydney and co-author of nan incompleteness paper. This relationship betwixt biologic improvement and nan rumor of noncomputability, Davies said, “goes correct to nan bosom of what makes life truthful magical.”

Is biology special, then, among evolutionary processes successful having an open-endedness generated by self-reference? Hazen thinks that successful truth erstwhile analyzable cognition is added to nan mix—once nan components of nan strategy tin reason, choose, and tally experiments “in their heads”—the imaginable for macro-micro feedback and open-ended maturation is moreover greater. “Technological applications return america measurement beyond Darwinism,” he said. A watch gets made faster if nan watchmaker is not blind.

Back to nan Bench

If Hazen and colleagues are correct that improvement involving immoderate benignant of action inevitably increases functional information—in effect, complexity—does this mean that life itself, and possibly consciousness and higher intelligence, is inevitable successful nan universe? That would tally antagonistic to what immoderate biologists person thought. The eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr believed that nan hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence was doomed because nan quality of humanlike intelligence is “utterly improbable.” After all, he said, if intelligence astatine a level that leads to cultures and civilizations were truthful adaptively useful successful Darwinian evolution, really travel it only arose erstwhile crossed nan full character of life?

Mayr’s evolutionary constituent perchance vanishes successful nan jump to humanlike complexity and intelligence, whereupon nan full playing section is utterly transformed. Humans attained planetary power truthful quickly (for amended aliases worse) that nan mobility of erstwhile it will hap again becomes moot.

But what astir nan chances of specified a jump happening successful nan first place? If nan caller “law of expanding functional information” is right, it looks arsenic though life, erstwhile it exists, is bound to get much analyzable by leaps and bounds. It doesn’t person to trust connected immoderate highly improbable chance event.

What’s more, specified an summation successful complexity seems to connote nan quality of caller causal laws successful quality that, while not incompatible pinch nan basal laws of physics governing nan smallest constituent parts, efficaciously return complete from them successful determining what happens next. Arguably we spot this already successful biology: Galileo’s (apocryphal) research of dropping 2 masses from nan Leaning Tower of Pisa nary longer has predictive powerfulness erstwhile nan masses are not cannonballs but surviving birds.