Chapter 107 18.1 The Revolution of Daily Evolution

Open any book on evolution, and you will find stories about change.Adaptation, speciation, mutation, these terms all mean the same thing - transformation, that is, change over time.Using the language of change taught to us by evolutionary science, we describe our history in terms of change, metamorphosis, innovation, etc. "New" is our favorite word. However, there is very little talk about stability in books on evolutionary theory.You won't find terms like static equilibrium, fixity, stability, or anything that signifies constancy in these kinds of books.Even though evolution changes little most of the time, teachers and textbooks keep quiet about this constancy.

Dinosaurs are held up as models of reluctance to change, which is a bit wronged.In people's minds, this tall monster always stares dumbfoundedly watching the bird-like creatures fly around his lumbering feet.We often advise the timid: Don't be a dinosaur!Don't be crushed by the advancing wheels!We tell the dull: Adapt or fall. When I typed the word "evolution" into the library's online index, I got this list: Evolution of Chinese Language, Evolution of Music, Evolution of Early American Political Parties, Evolution of Technology, Evolution of the Solar System Clearly, the word "evolution" in these titles is a convention used to mean incremental change over time.But is there anything in the world that isn't gradient?Almost all change around us is incremental.Catastrophic upheavals are rare, and long-lasting catastrophic changes are almost unheard of.Are all long-term changes evolutionary?

Some people think so.The Washington Society for Evolutionary Systems is a dynamic national association of 180 engineering and scientific professionals.Its charter states that all systems without exception are evolutionary, "(We) place no restrictions on the systems we examine...all that we see and experience is the product of an ongoing evolutionary process." In Research After discussing some of their views on evolution—such as "the evolution of objective reality, the evolution of enterprises"—I couldn't help but ask Bob Crosby, the founder of the association, "Is there any system that you think is not evolution?" ?” He replied, “We haven’t seen any corners where there hasn’t been evolution.” I’ve tried to avoid using the word “evolution” in this book in the sense of incremental change over time, but I haven’t been able to. totally do it.

Although the word "evolution" can cause confusion, the words that best convey the sense of change are closely related to organisms: growth, development, evolution, variation, learning, metamorphosis, adaptation.Nature is a kingdom of orderly change. And the disorderly change so far is a true portrayal of technology.The extreme of disorderly change is "revolution"—a violent, intermittent change that is characteristic of man-made things.Revolutions do not exist in nature. Technology takes revolution as its common mode of change.Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, followed by its unexpected French Revolution and the American War of Independence, we have since witnessed a succession of revolutions triggered by technological advances—electronics, antibiotics and surgery, plastics products, highways, birth control, and more.We hear news of revolutions in society and technology every week these days.The advent of technologies such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology, which means we can create anything we want, ensures that revolutions happen every day.

But I predict that this daily revolution will be sniped by daily evolution.The technological revolution will eventually merge with evolution.Both science and business are trying to master change—instilling change on itself in a structured way—so that it works steadily, producing continuous waves of micro-revolutions rather than dramatic, devastating grand revolutions.How do we implant change into artificial objects that can be both orderly and autonomous? The science of evolution is no longer just a treasure for biologists, but engineers as well.Artificial evolution is rising around us; more and more attention is paid to the research on natural evolution and artificial evolution.Alvin Toffler was a futurist who first brought awareness to the fact that not only was technology and culture changing rapidly, but the rate of change itself seemed to be accelerating.We live in an ever-changing world, and we must make sense of it.And we don't know enough about natural evolution.With the artificial natural evolution invented in recent years and the study of it, we can better understand the evolution of the organic world and better grasp, introduce and anticipate changes in our artificial world.The artificial evolution is the second main line of the new biology to which the living things belong, and it is also the first main line of the new biology to which the machine belongs.

Our goal is to build, say, cars that adjust their frames and wheels to suit the road they're driving on, build roads that check their own road conditions and repair themselves, build car factories that can produce flexibly and meet the individual needs of each customer , build highway systems that sense traffic jams and try to minimize them, and build cities that learn to coordinate the flow of traffic within them.Each of these goals requires the ability to transform itself through technology. However, rather than constantly pumping in small amounts of change, it is better to embed the essence of change—a spirit of adaptation—into the core of the system.This magical ghost is artificial evolution.At a large scale, it can breed artificial intelligence; at a small scale, it can promote gentle adaptation.In every sense of the word, evolution is a self-directing force that machines are far from possessing.

Postmodern thinking accepts the once disturbing idea that evolution knows nothing about the future.After all, it's impossible for humans to foresee all future needs—and we presume to have a longer-term view than other species.Ironically, evolution is more chaotic than we think: it doesn't know where it came from or where it's going.Not only do you know nothing about the future of things, but you are also at a loss about their past and present.Nature never knows what it did yesterday - and it doesn't care.It does not record so-called successes, coups, or useful things.All of our creatures together are barely a historical record, but it is difficult for us to reveal or decipher our history without great intelligence.

An ordinary organism has no idea of ​​the details of its underlying workings.A cell is like an ignorant girl when it comes to understanding its own genes.Plants and animals are small pharmaceutical factories, and the biochemical drugs that are fiddled with will make Genentech salivate.But neither the cell, the organ, the individual, nor the species traces back to the source of these achievements.Knowing what is, not knowing why—this is the highest philosophy of life. When we think of nature as a system, we don't expect it to be conscious, but to keep a record of what it does.As we all know, there is a golden rule in biology, called the central dogma.The law states that naturally there is no bookkeeping whatsoever.More precisely, the information is passed from the genes to the flesh, but never in reverse - from the flesh back to the genes.In other words, nature has no memory of its own past.