Entropy, Evolutionary Computation and Living Systems

Abstract 🔗

This article explores how entropy underlies evolution and the emergence of complex systems, from cells to society and relations to technology. It examines why non-biological systems can appear “living” and argues that understanding these dynamics clarifies how order, adaptation, and self-sustaining behavior arise across scales.

Introduction 🔗

Entropy 🔗

Entropy is the tendency of energy in the universe toward disorder. A water’s surface looks still; the energy is spread evenly, but beneath, the water molecules are in constant, random motion.

Local systems, humans and cells generate relative order by exporting entropy elsewhere through energy expenditure. Since entropy governs energy, it affects all systems governed by energy: chemical, biological, social, and economic.

Evolution and Evolutionary Computation 🔗

The Darwinian concept of evolution or natural selection refers to how organisms are evaluated for fitness to an environment across time. Reasoning from how entropy affects local systems, the underlying principle for evolution is entropy.

Moving from organism to smaller scales, we can think of a the tissue in the human heart. With every heartbeat, numerous cells perform specialized functions which are determined by (macromolecular) signals each cell receives and sends. A protein (biomolecule) travels, communicates and its very structure is maintained by the chemical interactions. Note how easily the animistic terms travels and communicates can be used to liken biochemical to living organisms.

Scaling up from the organism, we have evolutionary computation, the logical result of evolution. If evolution occurs for cells it occurs for organisms, if it does for organisms it does for the systems organisms participate in. It is correct to call social patterns expressed by humans as phenotypes, another genetic concept which denotes functions stemming from a particular gene. In this case it refers to a function from a set of genes. From the previously described concepts it should be clear that evolutionary concepts occurs for subcellular components as well: viruses, molecules, atoms. One might object that atoms should evolve, but that is a matter of semantics.¹

Kaczynski describes the technological system as self-sustaining.² For example, the school system of the Prussian model with its purpose of training specialized workers: children who want (and they want it for evolutionary reasons) to play are forced to sit still in class, and the natural response is diagnosed as ADHD, which is seen as problematic. This can easily be understood as a symbiosis that is negatively affecting humanity. What I want to focus on is how an unliving system very aptly is metaphorically described to “sustain itself.”

Life and Systems 🔗

Turning to the term life, we find that its exact classification is disputed.³ However we are discussion a colloquial understanding of living, and will thus accept the common characteristics attributed to life. These tend to include:

• responses to the environment,
• growth,
• recreation (thus adaption/evolution),
• maintenance of homeostasis (requiring regulation), and
• having a complex chemistry.⁴

The reason a system appears living is because it is governed by the same physical principles as life. Additionally, for systems that exist on larger levels such as the social one, it will relate to living beings. Our technological system does consist of us in part, even if it requires us to live in unnatural ways.

Discussion 🔗

While these are created to describe things on levels from cellular to organism, they all describe biological results of physical principles. Since these principles operate on smaller and larger levels, it’s easy to use the characteristics to describe how the technological system (spontaneously) responds to changes and grows. Of course it lacks consciousness, but that is typically not included in definitions of life. Ultimately, it is a matter of semantics whether or not one calls a system living or not in the biological sense.

The primary reason for writing this is to demystify why unliving things appear to be alive. A recently deceased frog may twitch in response to electricity because enough of its cells and tissue are still intact, and it does appear living at first glance. Yet I want to acknowledge the utility of understanding abstract concepts using familiar concepts as reference.

Another reason is because I believe it to be dangerous to write something off as unliving in the metaphorical sense. Words carry connotations dependent on our frame of reference, and so, by describing a system as unliving, it can instill the idea that it is far more static and controllable than it actually is.

Conclusion 🔗

In conclusion, the energy of the universe tends towards disorder through a dynamic process. This manifest in different forms depending on the scale: chemical interactions, structures of cells, human behavior, and systems humans participate in. The properties of life are general results of this first principle, and it is a matter of semantics to call one thing living and not another. This understanding opens up a framework for understanding will, meaning, and destiny, and perspectives for discussions on topics like technological advancements and transhumanism.