"Information has a qualitative impact on evolution, that is as important as the impact of energy and matter : energy drives the SCOPE of evolution (quantitative) and inFORMation drives the FORM of evolution (qualitative). Matter is energy that has evolved into a certain form. Information itself has evolved into a number of forms with different complexity."
This is the central theme and thesis in the heuristic model developed in the paper "On the origin and impact of information in evolution".
This theme sounds a bit abstract, but in our current times it has become more important than ever. The way information impacts our lives and society has never been larger since human evolution. Systems, sites and software offered by the likes of Intel, Microsoft, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and Google are transforming human networks into a global networked "brain". This is contemporary evolution !!! It's where Bill Gates meets Charles Darwin ...
See the website : http://www.geocities.com/evolutionweb/
or paper : http://www.geocities.com/evolutionweb/eindex.htm
...which all starts with the following blue sky question :
During the evolution of our universe, chance has played a major role. Even to that extent that it would be improbable that the actual fauna and flora would redevelop if evolution would be repeated. All the classification efforts of a biologist as Carl Linneaus would be irrelevant if evolution would be repeated. If Carl Linneaus would still be alive, this thought would be a nightmare for him.
If chance plays such a major role in evolution, and we want to get a good insight in the basic principles of the evolution process, we will have to reduce the role of chance to its relevant proportions. We will do this by performing a huge thought experiment. Instead of asking ourselves whether or not we can repeat the evolution in an identical way, we will assume that this is not the case (due to the role of chance). We will therefore ask another question :
"Which recurrent evolution patterns would we see, if we would repeat the evolution a million times?".
I appreciate your insights !!!
Mittwoch, 23. Januar 2008
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