"The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."

Sir Arthur Stanley, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Regarding evolution: some comments were made at the last meetup that indicate that there are some huge and pervasive misconceptions circulating (even amongst scientists and those with advanced physical science degrees from respected institutions).

I will try to set some of these misnomers straight.

1. Nothing happens unless that event is the event that demanded the least energy.
2. Any change in any system results in the degradation of energy (and, or, structure) towards heat or perfectly random distribution.
3. Change is the result of energy transforming state through work.
4. No laws in nature are reversible… the Second Law of Thermodynamics (and its equivalent in information theory) dictate this. All considerations in contradiction to this law are only and always hypothetical ("assume a friction-free system" etc.).
5. No system can ever achieve an increase in complexity or climb to a higher energy state. If a system seems to be doing so, it has to be part of a larger system from which it is either extracting higher energy or complexity. Even the act of disgorging low energy or low complexity waste requires the input of external energy just to maintain energy or complexity parity.
6. The earth is not a closed system. The solar system is not a closed system. The galaxy is not a closed system. The universe appears to be a closed system (the only possible closed system).
7. Entropy (the inevitable reduction in total complexity that results from any flow of energy through a system) is constant and guaranteed.
8. The only variable is the speed with which a system can reduce complexity.
9. This increased rate of reduction of complexity (Entropy) is the filtering criteria known in evolution theory as fitness.
10. As systems become more complex they can handle a larger and larger throughput of energy. Evolutionarily, the throughput of energy is quantified as the capacity of a system to maximize the reduction of energy towards perfect equilibrium (heat death).
11. This, conversely, becomes the definition of complexity.
12. All systems and their subsystems are evolving. Biology is not special in any evolutionary way.
13. As a system evolves it increases in its capacity to reduce its environment's energy and structural complexity. This results in a tendency of an environment to selectively supply more energy to the region of that evolving complexity (the more water a meadow can evaporate or absorb, the greater the amount of water that can flow into it).

So, in light of these truths, it is fair to re-examine some of the common myths held to be true about evolution on earth. To wit:

Myth 1. "The evolution of life on earth tends towards a reduction in energy use."
Myth 2. "Evolution is a purely random and blind process."
Myth 3. "Evolution has a plan."
Myth 4. "Life contradicts the second law of thermodynamics."
Myth 5. "Evolution doesn't have a direction."

[these myths explored in next post]

Randall Reetz

All About Evolution [part 2, Evolution Myths Explored]

Myth 1 "The evolution of life on earth tends towards a reduction in energy use." This myth seems to have originated in a confusion of the observation that areas with the greatest biological diversity and density (tropical and semi-tropical rain forests, and certain nutrient-rich shallow seas benefiting from the continual flush of deeper waters) seem to be systems optimized towards the diffusion of energy. The many-layered complexity of rain forests and silt-rich ocean upwelling zones insure a stepwise reduction of energy to low level heat and an ever more even distribution of that heat. This is the grand attractor of evolution. It is what is expected in any evolving system. Though it is always present, the more complex a system becomes, the more this reduction/diffusion becomes obvious. Life has not found a way around the second law. Tropical forests don't circumvent thermodynamics. There is no back door. A tropical forest, through complex stratification and layered and coupled thermodynamic systems, is able to achieve a more perfect (complete) reduction of energy. In the process, it incorporates available sources of structural complexity (minerals, geographical clines) and over time results in the reduction of these complexities as well. So long as the gravitation-driven thermal flux that is the earth's core drives the surface plates against each other, structural clines will continue to be made available as fuel for this energy driven process that life exploits. If one were to compare the rate of the reduction of complexity on two identical planets, one with biology, and one without (but otherwise identical) one would find that life reduces structural complexity and energy availability faster and more completely than the purely chemical processes that preceded life. If a system appears to be evolving towards less complexity, or the use of less energy, you can be sure that you are missing some fundamental interaction between it and its environment (as source and discharge)… you can be sure in other words that your arbitrary definitional boundaries (what is and is not the "system") do not include an important communication with the larger system in which it is situated. Otherwise, you are claiming a perpetual motion physics and ignoring thermodynamics.

Myth 2 "Evolution is a purely random and blind process." The whole point of the process of evolution is the development of systems that can out-perform bind randomness. This is insured by the fact that complexity is expensive. Its cost is only justified (in competition with other less-expensive structures), if the more expensive structure allows the system to outperform a less complex system at the process of predicting the future. Sound familiar? This is the same process that leads to learning. Learning is exactly and only evolution. Evolution is exactly and only learning. The more "advanced" or complex a system becomes, the better it gets at not being random, at not being blind… an evolving system is a system that learns to pay attention to the attributes of its environment (including itself) that are most important, and to ignore those parts of the environment that are simply noise or repetition. In this way an evolving system uses energy to produce a structure that can only see salience. New capacity in this regard can lead to the production of even better saliency filtering. There is a direct causal linkage between that which is salient and that which is. A better way of saying this is that evolution results in a more and more compact and energy efficient description of the salience that is the physics of its environment. There is no such thing as complexity that is not salient to or matched to the inclosing environment.

Though it is certainly possible for systems to fall into place (least energy rule) into configurations that are not in close alignment with the causal salience (physics) of the universe, to the extent they vary from optimal description of causality they will not be able to compete (in the long term) with systems which have configurations are in better agreement with the salience of the universe.

Myth 3 "Evolution has a plan." This myth is the rhetorical counterpoint to the "Evolution is blind" myth. To have a plan, a system needs to be able to model itself and all resources it might draw from in reference to a set of desirable outcomes. The capacity to develop and execute towards such a
"plan" requires a great deal of non-random organizational complexity and the stability required to maintain such an arrangement through long periods of time. Obviously, the vast majority of the evolution of both the physical cosmos and life have transpired without the complexity and stability required to develop and maintain anything like what could be called a "plan".

However, in the same way that randomness can, over large stretches of accumulation and selection, precipitate non-random organization, the ability for a system to develop the capacity to plan is within the capacity of an evolving system. Evolution's relationship to the capacity of a system to develop and execute a plan is intimate. In point of fact, all configurations embody what might be called a plan. Any configuration of matter has a causal tendency to force the greater probability of one set of behaviors and to inhibit the probability of other sets of behaviors. In a very real way, the shape of a molecule, its electromagnetic topology, and its mass work to asymmetrically "predict" future interaction probabilities – its physicality alone act as filter for future interactions and likelihoods. But this link between configuration and future interaction space is not the same as what spiritualists refer to when they supply Gaia with the capacity to "plan" its own future.

Certainly, evolution can and does build towards the requisite complexity and self-organization necessary for the production of rational self-rewarding planning, but because evolution works just fine prior to accumulating the requisite capacity, it is rationally irresponsible to say that evolution requires the ability or complexity to plan.

Myth 4 "Life contradicts the second law of thermodynamics." This myth is suppressing if only for the fact that it attracts such disparate adherents. As would be expected, it is promoted by religious fanatics on the far edges of fundamentalism who are driven to prove that science itself explains life as separate from physical law (which of course isn't true at all as we will see). More interesting and dismaying is the fact that many scientists (especially biologists!) hold life in such high esteem, admire it so, that they are willing to allow arbitrary romantic inconsistencies in the very scientific theoretical base upon which biology is based. I can't help but believe that both groups are driven by the same deep urge to feel special, to avoid the harsh causal finality that physics so impersonally and coldly applies to all that exists. Humans, faced with a clear understanding of and lavishly delivered imaginative projection of the ultimatum that is death, will saddle up to almost any philosophical detour around finality, even when that philosophy disrupts the elegance and cohesiveness of rat

All About Evolution [part 3, putting it all together]

What does it mean that evolution, like every other process, only happens as the result of least-energy actions – of things falling down? For one, it means that evolution isn't special. It means that all systems are evolving. That nothing but evolution ever happens. It means that there is no configuration, no matter how elaborate, that will ever cause something to happen that requires or causes, at any moment of an action or process, something to happen that requires more energy than some other action – the next easiest thing always happens next – period! It means that every configuration, no matter how complex, is what it is purely and only as a result of an unbroken string of least-energy events. It also means that there are an almost endless number of configurations that come and go, but that some configurations are more stable and, as a result, last longer (for more modification opportunities). It means that stability is built into systems as a result of their being built of an unbroken string of the worst case possibility – everything is built exclusively of the most fallen down, broken down, fucked up history – which is great because it means it is always close to the ground, close to the bottom of the valley, there is nowhere to fall.

More than that, the thermodynamically restricted universe insures a honing in on a certain type of configuration. It says that configurations are expensive. Expensive things require energy flow. Energy flow requires access to difference, to flux, to an uneven energy cline. High-energy flow configurations require even greater complexity and its expense to maintain stability despite higher and higher energy flow. The maintenance and protection of complexity both increases energy flow and diffuses and degrades it. The more complex a system is the more its enclosing environment is simplified. The whole system (the universe) gets simpler as energy throughput demand increases in response to the complexity of a system. As This will always happen. In all systems. At all times. But is only blatantly apparent in systems of high-complexity (biology as example).

Complexity has another task master and that is "consilience". Unless the complexity of a system is in agreement with other more basic processes in nature (physics), it will not be able to compete with systems that do. That means that evolution tends always to build systems that become better descriptions of the salient causal rules that govern the universe. Evolved things become better and better abstractions of the underlying structure of the universe. This isn't spiritual. This is practical. A system has more capacity for greater complexity to the extent it is wasting less energy fighting its environment (the universe).

An evolved configuration must have the capacity in any given present to survive, but to compete through future states, it must also have the capacity to become the building blocks of configurations that can build out greater complexities. There are always many more ways to survive in the present than there are ways to both survive in the present and be ready for the future.

Ultimately, a system must evolve an understanding of evolution itself. Ultimately, a system must understand the most salient aspects of change.

Imagine for instance a time in the past, maybe 3 billion years ago. There were certainly pockets of highly complex, even self replicating molecules. One can imagine a time when complexity on earth was dominated by such molecules. At some moment in this epoch, it is conceivable that a single mutation resulted in a double helix molecule (or its predecessor). If one were to visit the earth at that moment, it would be hard to recognize that that one runty stuttering molecule in a planet full of complex chemical proto-life activity, would be the configuration that mattered the most to the future of complexity on earth. Dominance doesn't always equate prediction.

To be continued…

Randall Reetz