Complexity growth patterns in the Big History: Preliminary results of a quantitative analysis

Abstract

The paper presents preliminary results of a quantitative analysis of two patterns of complexity growth in the Big History – decelerating universal (cosmic) evolutionary development evidenced in the Universe for a few billions of years after the Big Bang (around 13.8 billion BP) and accelerating global (biosocial) evolutionary development observed for about 4 billion years on the planet Earth since the emergence of life on it and until the early 1970s. It is shown that the first pattern can be described with an astonishing accuracy (R2 = 0.999996) by the following equation: y = C1/(t-t1*), where y is the rate of the universal complexity growth (measured as a number of phase transitions [accompanied by the growth of complexity] per a unit of time), C1 is a constant, and t-t1* is the time since the Big Bang Singularity (t1*~13.8 billion years BP). In the meantime, it was earlier shown that the second pattern could be described with an almost as high accuracy (R2 = 0.9989 to 0.9991) by the following equation: y = C2/(t2*-t), where y is the rate of accelerating global (biosocial) evolutionary development, C2 is another constant, and t2*-t is the time till the 21st century Singularity (t2*, estimated to be around 2027, or 2029 CE). Thus, the post-Big-Bang hyperbolic decrease of universal complexity growth rate and the hyperbolic increase of the growth rate of global complexity in the last 4 billion years proceeded following the same law. We are dealing here with a perfect symmetry: (1) the rate of the universal (cosmic) complexity growth decreases when we move from the Big Bang Singularity, whereas the rate of the global complexity growth increase when we approach the 21st century Singularity; (2) more specifically, as the time since the Big Bang Singularity increases n times, the universal (cosmic) complexity growth rate decreases the same n times, whereas when the time till the 21st century Singularity decreased n times, the global complexity growth rate increased the same n times. A somehow more complex symmetry is observed as regards the interaction between energy dynamics and complexity growth within both processes. The implications of the symmetry of both patterns are discussed.