Ecohumanist Lab

I have been talking to Peter Brown about Beinhocker book “The Origins of Wealth” . They say “variation, amplification, selection”.

Amplification is first and only premise, variation and and selection are computer settings, in vivo they are the results of the evolution.

    Amplification means that you get more and more of the same thing.

“The same thing” concept clarification is absolutely crucial.

19th century England was all about “species” and “organisms”, and 20th century computer models followed.

The TEO (Toward Evolutionary Objectivity – this is my theory, you can read about it elsewhere ) drops this, it sounds slightly Buddhist, but the substrate of the evolution is a cluster of attributes which “amplify” together.

Additionally, and this is not Buddhist any more, this cluster or aggregate, or system is not “out there”, is not part of the “nature”. In our evolutionary process of understanding the world, our ancestors ( animals ) created these clusters In their perception brains, according to usefulness- so now we ( humans) named them- for example- “fish” or “finger” or “weather” or “anger”.

In TEO they are called behaviors. The behavior can have elaborate description, like what was the princesses’ dress made of and who was the taylor, or simple description, like “bacterium swims towards the sugar gradient”. Every behavior consists of its components- the simpler behaviors- down to the subatomic spin.

Now: Any cluster of behaviors which amplify /multiply, makes more of the same thing- is the subject of the evolution. It veel evolve!

In our universe ( our understanding)  the amplification means “in time”.

“In time” means, increase entropy, means it follows II law of thermodynamics.

Would the system be perfect it would amplify endlessly.

But not in our Universe. We are granular, energy-uneven .

Most simply- the cluster will cease to amplify together- fine- it dies- it breaks down- entropy is up with time, complexity’s down- more chaos.

But, against all odds- other systems will continue- then- not being perfect- one of the components will occur in two  versions. The one which amplifies better- will slow down the energy gradient- will be smarter, more complex- soon the other one is bye bye gone.

Of course, the greatest invention of the evolution is the system which keeps amplifying -nearly perfect- the nuclear acids’ code- leading to the organism.

So, the algorithm is simpler than I thought, just keep amplifying.

The variation and the selection are the results , are inevitable, not a part of the evolutionary algorithm, but needed to be programmed for the computer model to tick…

The amplification, to be evolutionary relevant, has to have a substrate which is able to continue the process of multiplication. The examples are : simple carbonic acid cycle, the crystals in the oversaturated solution. Girls Preparatory School.The substrate contains the information to continue the production of the more of the substrate.

But this is not enough.

The substrate has to contain the information how to make a new factory of the substrate. Or at least a part of it. Examples ? simple strain of the nucleic acids. Mating rituals in animals. Storytelling behavior in humans. Parenting.