Chapter 130 21.4 Self-evolution like a coyote trickster

A review of the evolution of evolution can be speculated as follows.At first, evolution set in motion various self-replications, producing enough numbers to induce natural selection.Once the numbers swell, directed mutations become increasingly important.Next, symbiosis began to be the main mover and oscillator of evolution, nourished by changes produced by natural selection.As the shape grows larger, constraints on the shape begin to form.As the length of the genome grows, internal selection begins to control the genome.With the assembly of genes, speciation and species-level selection break in.As organisms acquired sufficient complexity, the evolution of behavior and limbs emerged.Eventually, intelligence sprouted, and Lamarck's civilizational evolution took its place.The constituent tissues of evolution on Earth will continue to evolve as we humans introduce genetically engineered and self-programmed robots.

Therefore, the history of life is a series of various evolutionary processes caused by the ever-expanding complexity of life.As life becomes more hierarchical—genes, cells, tissues, species—evolution changes the goals of work.Biologist Leo Bass of Yale University argues that at each stage of evolutionary evolution, the level of units subject to natural selection increases."The history of life," Bass wrote, "is a history of the selection of different units." Natural selection selects individuals; Bass argues that the parts that make up an individual have been evolving over time.For example, billions of years ago, cells were the unit of natural selection, but eventually the cells combined to form assemblies, and natural selection turned to select their assemblies—multicellular organisms—to make them Choose as an individual.One of the ways to look at this problem is to look at what has evolved from the unit that constitutes the evolutionary individual.At first an individual is a stable system, then a molecule, then a cell, then a living organism.What's next?Since Darwin, many imaginative evolutionists have proposed "group selection", that is, the evolution that takes species groups as a unit, as if a species is an individual.Certain species survive or die not because of the viability of the organism, but because of some unknown quality of its species—perhaps evolution.

Group selection remains a controversial idea, and Bassner's broader conclusions are even more so.He argued that "the main character of evolution is formed in the switching between units of natural selection." Thus, he said, "at every transition period—at every stage in the developmental history of life when new self-replicating units emerge— — the rules governing the mode of operation of natural selection have been radically altered."In short, nature's evolution itself evolves. Man-made evolution will go through the same process of evolution, both man-made and natural.We will design it to be able to complete the specified work, and we will also breed some artificially evolved new species to do some special work better.After so many years, you may be able to choose a specific artificial evolution brand from the catalog, and get artificial evolution with moderate novelty, or self-guided perfection.But artificial evolution, like any other evolutionary system, will have certain preferences.No single species, for sure, will ever be completely under our control, and they have their own evolutionary agendas.

If there really are artificial evolutions of sorts, there really are mixtures of sub-evolutions that evolve themselves within that thing we call evolution, then what is the character of this larger evolution, this variation of change?What is the characteristic of this superevolution—not only the ordinary level of evolution, but also the greater evolution through it?Where does it lead?What exactly is evolution trying to do? I checked the evidence and determined that the goal of evolution was itself. The evolutionary process is constantly concentrating on reinventing itself time after time.With each transformation, evolution becomes a process of becoming more capable of transforming itself.Thus, "it is both a source and an effect."

The math of evolution doesn't drive it to make more flamingos, more dandelions, or more other biological entities.Being productive is just a by-product of evolution—see, hatching millions of frogs—not the goal.Instead, the direction of evolution is self-actualization. Life is the medium of evolution.Life provides the raw materials of biological tissues and species that allow evolution to evolve further.Evolution cannot evolve greater evolvability without a vast array of increasingly complex organisms.So, evolution produces complexity and diversity and millions of beings, thus expanding the space for itself to evolve into a stronger evolutionary.

All self-evolvers must be magicians as good as coyotes.The magician was never satisfied with his transformation.It's always grabbing its own tail and turning itself inside out, into something more complex, more flexible, more fancy, more dependent on itself, and it's going to keep trying to grab its own tail again endlessly. The universe tolerates this kind of cruel evolution and accumulates a stronger evolution, what exactly has it gained? All I can see are possibilities. And, in my opinion, possibility is a pretty good end point.