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Evolution is a universal principle. That is, it is present at every spatiotemporal scale.
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Selection is the key to the process of evolution. We may understand evolution as a kind of Algorithm.
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There isn’t necessarily an a priori “right” solution to be gotten in evolution, just degrees of better fitness, and whatever fitness may be attained is never final. The process of evolution need not have a goal.
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The basis of evolution is replication — the ability of a system to make a copy of itself. Variety is then added due to imperfections in the replication process — mutation. The best fit systems are those that persist long enough to replicate their traits to future generations.
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Evolution is driven towards more complexity.
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Evolution alone, however, does not explain the emergence of complex systems. After all, there must be some manner in which the constituents of the system structure themselves. We do not get order solely from evolution
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What matters for evolution is where excess energy goes and what it makes happen.
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Information, as a difference that makes a difference in how well something works for an organism, sets up evolution not only as an organizing process but as a selectively organizing process
- The selective feedback loop of differences that make a difference build the trajectories of change which we describe as evolution
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As one changes the choices of boundaries—what is the system of interest—one discovers variability in how evolvable the selected system is.
- Evolution necessitates an increase in complexity. Evolution is progressive, a developmental trajectory that builds upon itself
- Changes tend to be cumulative. The generation of novel assemblies followed by the sorting (selecting) of viability and stability in order to allow the emergence of the next higher level is the essence of universal evolution.
- The evolvability of a system is dependent on several factors:
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Reproduction Many functionally redundant components that are being continually generated from a base pattern.
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Replication and Mutation The generation process should be of fairly high fidelity, but occasional heritable (“copy”) random errors should occur to generate variation in functionality.
- The medium for replication must be stable over the lifetime of the system.
- A valuable source of variability, or novelty, is when knowledge structure units are intermixed and wind up in different members of a population
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Nonstationarity. The environment should be stationary over life cycles but non-stationary over longer time-scales to allow for new patterns to emerge.
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Stress. When change occurs, they push critical factors to an extreme. Thus, components live in stressful conditions relative to what the previously normal environment had been.
- Selection is driven in the long run by major environmental factors
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Adaptation Among the variations in the response capabilities, there must be some components pre-adapted to the stressor.
- Coevolutionary processes go one step further from adapting to environmental changes. They involve adapting based on how other components are adapting as well.
- Being interlocked provides critical system stability .
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Selection. There must be a way to differentiate between successful components from unsuccessful ones.
- Both cooperation and competition can contribute to the selection process. The former through synergy and mutualism; The latter via pressuring systems to innovate and outlive their competition.
- The presence of Hierarchical control mechanisms can also be considered in the selection process as these control mechanisms allow for coordination between processes.
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Evolution can be thought of as a massively parallel search over a large design space.