Abstract
Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory explains how the appearance of purposive design in the adaptations of living organisms can have come about without their intentionally being designed. The explanation relies crucially on the possibility of certain physical processes: mainly, gene replication and natural selection. In this paper, I show that for those processes to be possible without the design of biological adaptations being encoded in the laws of physics, those laws must have certain other properties. The theory of what these properties are is not part of evolution theory proper, yet without it the neo-Darwinian theory does not fully achieve its purpose of explaining the appearance of design. To this end, I apply constructor theory's new mode of explanation to express exactly within physics the appearance of design, no-design laws, and the logic of self-reproduction and natural selection. I conclude that self-reproduction, replication and natural selection are possible under no-design laws, the only non-trivial condition being that they allow digital information to be physically instantiated. This has an exact characterization in the constructor theory of information. I also show that under no-design laws an accurate replicator requires the existence of a ‘vehicle’ constituting, together with the replicator, a self-reproducer.
Highlights
Living entities display regularities unlike those observed in any other kind of matter
The appearance of design was long considered evidence of intentional design [1,2,3]: Why is it there? How did it come into existence? The theory of evolution [4] explains how the appearance of design can have been brought about by an undesigned physical process of variation and natural selection
The central problem—i.e. whether and under what circumstances accurate self-reproduction and replication are compatible with no-design laws—is awkward to formulate in the prevailing conception of fundamental physics, which expresses everything in terms of predictions given some initial conditions and laws of motion
Summary
Living entities display regularities unlike those observed in any other kind of matter. The central problem—i.e. whether and under what circumstances accurate self-reproduction and replication are compatible with no-design laws—is awkward to formulate in the prevailing conception of fundamental physics, which expresses everything in terms of predictions given some initial conditions and laws of motion. This mode of explanation can only approximately express emergent notions such as the appearance of design, no-design laws, etc. It vindicates that self-reproduction—and even (possibly artificial) self-reproducers employing quantum coherence—are compatible with quantum theory
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