A general theory of evolution
A truly general theory of evolution should not make the difference between physical and mental objects. One of the obsessions of western philosophy ever since Plato has been the apparent contrast between the impermanence of the objects of the physical world and the permanence of the abstract objects of the mind. Closely related to this is the search for absolute knowledge, another of the leitmotifs of western thought.
In my view permanence is an illusion created by human consciousness in order to simplify and render more efficient the interaction between the brain and the outside world of perception. In other words the brain has evolved to filter out irrelevant details and only allow important features to reach consciousness so as not to clutter it with large amounts of useless information. Since most of the important actions and decisions that must be made by the human being on a day to day basis (particularly life saving reactions and instincts) happen on a very short timescale, one of the insignificant details filtered out by the brain is the ubiquitous nature of change. This we refer to as our instinctive aversion to change. The number two is seen as permanent because it is a mental construct designed to apply to situations where the passage of time has negligible effects. Our mind instinctively glosses over the fact that two apples are bound to rot, break down and mix together with each other and the ground below until they are no longer distinguishable, and it focuses on the immediate appearance of two temporarily separate objects. Some mental objects therefore seem to be outside time, permanent, exactly because they are obtained by specifically ignoring those features of our perception related to the passage of time. [interestingly, inanimate objects may do the same, in their own way. We speak of conscious immutable ideas, or forms, they have macroscopic degrees of freedom. The rest is irrelevant variables, see renormalization group]
Within this philosophy of evolution both mental and physical objects are seen as bundles or swarms of interactions. Objects are different from each other because they involve different patterns of interactions. The identity of any object is given by the relationships of the objects composing it. Objects do not have intrinsic existence. If we create an object in which the internal relationships are identical to some other object, then the two are fundamentally indistinguishable in the same sense that electrons or black holes are indistinguishable.
One would then like to know how and why some objects last longer than others, and how they appear and disappear. The concept I put forward is that of reciproduction. It implies that any object, be it alive or inanimate, exists as part of an auto-catalytic cycle, that is a group of objects which interact with each other in such a way as to help bring about and maintain the conditions necessary for their mutual production. Some such cycles are more robust than others, and are better adapted to their environments. Therefore they last longer, and the objects they are made of last longer. The environment eventually changes, the cycle breaks down, and the objects either disappear or find other cycles to support themselves.
The term “reproduction” was appropriated by the life sciences in order to study certain aspects of the biological world. This term is defined in the corresponding narrow way and it carries considerable conceptual baggage related to carbon based Earth specific life. This is why I have coined the new term reciproduction to stress the generality and novelty of my concept. This is explained in more detail in the “Theism and the logic of evolution” article.
One of the distinctive features of the evolution based approach to philosophy I propose is the lack of any fundamental principles other than that of change. The philosophical framework itself is subject to evolution and no part of it is deemed permanent or fixed, other than Change itself. In this philosophy nothing is ever final other than the fact that nothing is ever final.
Another essential and far reaching feature of any truly relational philosophy is that the three following terms are equivalent: Change, Interaction and Existence. They are three words that refer to the same thing. Everything that exists must change and interact. Everything that interacts changes, and if something does not change, then it does not exist and it cannot interact with anything. The impact of this feature is strongest in the context of the modern formulations of physical laws, many of which involve conservation laws in isolated systems. Since by the argument above true isolation is equivalent to non-existence and thereby to scientific irrelevance, this requires a deep reevaluation of our current understanding of physics.
But difficult as it may be, courageous explorers have already started down this difficult trail; see for example Lee Smolin’s books, particularly his “Three Roads to Quantum Gravity” and “The trouble with physics”.
