The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables

Hello. The following topics are loosely related to / triggered by things Hoffman said in his recent interview.

1. The Applicability of Darwinian Evolution

In the recent interview, as well as in previous talks and in his book, Hoffman relates a lot to Evolution, and specifically to Darwinian Evolution (let’s relate to it as a generalization, or a distillation, of Darwin’s Theory of Biological Evolution). This is very natural, since Hoffman’s earlier work was in the field of human perception (the neuroscience side of it) – how it works and how it evolved.

In The Case Against Reality, Hoffman expands on Darwinian Evolution and notes that the concept is universal, and can apply to things other than molecules and organisms. This includes, for example, ideas and theories; meaning, that ideas and theories can evolve in a similar fashion (implied: if the basic conditions are met).

Okay, so we have the notion that Darwinian Evolution may apply to many different things, including abstract things. But that doesn’t dictate that it applies to everything, in all situations and contexts. The question that interests me at this point is whether it can (or does) apply in an abstract reality like Hoffman’s CA universe (or RSU for that matter).

In my perception, Darwinian Evolution requires exactly two prerequisites:

1. Entities that spontaneously morph into variants of themselves; and
2. Some external selective pressure.

That’s it.

For example, if some non-trivial stable molecule is floating in some chemical soup, it might spontaneously, through chemical reactions, lose some of its atoms and maybe gain others instead. As a result, we get a slightly different variant of the original molecule at hand. Now, suppose that the ambient temperature when that happened was 23°C, and that the new molecule is stable in the range 21-25°C. If the temperature then rises to 27°C, that new molecule might not survive (break down). That is an example of a selective pressure. If the new variant is more resilient, and will only break down at 70°C, it has much better chances surviving the temperature rise to 27°C and beyond.

There are many ways we could think about entities in RSU spontaneously morphing into variants of themselves. That’s easy. The much harder question I’m facing is: What would constitute a selective pressure? If I can’t come up with a convincing answer, Darwinian Evolution might not be applicable here. Luckily, I had a chance to think about this topic earlier, and I have an idea that is inspired by Darwinian evolution, but is not Darwinian Evolution per-se (I think). I intend to write a post about it; maybe after I’m done with the current review of Hoffman’s interview.

Nothing in what I said so far is intended as criticism of Hoffman’s thinking – how biological Darwinian evolution shaped our perception to not see reality as it is, how reality might be consciousness-based rather than space, time and physical objects-based, or the general applicability of Darwinian Evolution (including to abstract objects). All of those make sense to me. All I’m saying here is that I see (or saw) a difficulty in translating Darwinian Evolution directly into RSU, and that I think I see a way out.

That’s it for today. Peace to all.