Chapter 99 17.1 Expand the living space

A swarm of bees had slipped out of the hive and hung in a clump from a branch.If nearby beekeepers are lucky, the branches they land on are easy to reach.At this time, these bees, who are full of honey and do not need to care for their young, are as docile as ladybugs. I've had the experience once or twice of moving a swarm hanging at my head height into my own empty hive.The process of moving tens of thousands of bees from a tree branch into a beehive is one of life's marvelous performances. If neighbors are watching, you can show them a trick: Spread a white cloth or a large piece of cardboard under the buzzing swarm.Drape one side of the cloth over the door panel that pulls out from the bottom of the empty hive so that the cloth or cardboard forms a large ramp leading to the entrance of the hive.At this point, pause dramatically, then grab the branch and shake it hard.

The swarm fell from the tree in its entirety, onto the sheet and squirmed in all directions like churning black syrup.Thousands of bees overlapped each other, huddled in a chaotic pile, and buzzed.Slowly, you will see some clues.The bees lined up facing the opening of the hive and filed in, like little robots receiving a single command.They did receive orders.If you lean down close to the white cloth and put your nose close to the swarm of wriggling bees, you will smell like roses.You'll see the bees hunched over and beating their wings violently as they march.They were blowing rose scent from their tails and fanning it into the ranks behind them.This aroma tells the partners behind: "The queen bee is here, follow me." The second followed the first, the third followed the second, and after five minutes, the entire bee colony got into the beehive, cloth The list was almost empty.

It is impossible for the first life on earth to stage this scene.This is not for lack of sufficient variants.Early genes simply did not have the ability to perform this feat.Using the smell of roses to coordinate tens of thousands of flying insects into a purposeful crawling monster is not something that early life could do.Not only had early life failed to create the stage on which the great drama would unfold—worker bees, queens, nectar, trees, hives, pheromones—but it hadn’t even created the tools to build the stage. Nature can produce astonishing diversity because it is open in nature.Life will not produce dizzying changes just by relying on the first few genes that were born.Instead, one of the earliest discoveries of life was how to create new genes, more genes, variable genes, and a larger gene pool.

A book in the Borges library contains the information equivalent to a million genes; a single frame of a high-resolution Hollywood movie contains the information equivalent to 30 million genes.Although the "library" constructed from this is huge, they are just a speck of dust in the "meta-library" composed of all possible libraries. One of the characteristics of life is that it will constantly expand its living space.Nature is an ever-expanding storehouse of possibilities, an open universe.As life draws the most incredible books from the shelves, it builds rooms for the collection and creates space for even more incredible texts.

We don't know how life breached the dividing line from fixed to variable genetic space.Perhaps a particular gene determines the number of genes in a chromosome.As long as that one gene is mutated, the total number of genes in the chain can be increased or decreased.Perhaps genome size is indirectly determined by multiple genes.Or, more likely, the size of the genome is determined by the structure of the genetic system itself. Tom Ray's experiments showed that in his self-replicating world, variable gene lengths emerge instantaneously.His creations determine the length of their genomes (and thus the size of their possible gene pools), from an unexpected 22 bytes to as long as 23,000 bytes.

Open genomes lead to open evolution.A system that preprograms the work of each gene, or the number of genes, can only evolve within the preprogrammed limits.The original systems of Dawkins, Latham, and Sims, as well as the Russian programmer's electronic fish, ran aground on this limitation.They may be able to generate all possible frames of a given size and depth, but not all possible artwork.A system that does not predetermine the roles and numbers of genes works surprisingly well.Here's why Tom Ray's creation is causing a stir.Theoretically, his world could evolve anything in its final form pool if it ran long enough.