Evolution Isn’t Enough

Though a powerful theory, evolution continues to face strong headwinds from people who question its ability to fully explain the complex structure of the universe.  What’s missing is the ability to completely explain how hierarchy develops.

The universe uses hierarchy to reach high levels of complexity. From the simplest quantum particles to the most complex organisms (humans), there are hierarchical lines of demarcation:

• Quantum matter organized into atomic and elemental matter. 
• Atomic and elemental matter organized into complex molecules. 
• Complex molecules organized into unicellular life.
• Unicellular life organized into multi-cellular life
• Multi-cellular life organized bodies with specialized organs
•  Bodies with specialized organs organized into humans

What differentiates hierarchical levels are the ways the components interact.  Take the example of life.  Living matter and non-living matter are composed of the same chemicals.  Life is formed when non-living components interact in a specific way that we call life.  Explaining how the universe developed requires understanding how the universe builds new interactions.  The “emergent process” (or “emergence”) describes the building of new interactions which complements the evolutionary process.  Evolution is the universal experimental process; consisting of small structural changes. Emergence leads to selection criteria that decide which changes endure and which ones fail.  Selection criteria are derived from emergence, not from evolution.

While we don’t understand how life emerged, we can make educated guesses. At its core, life consists of two major parts - energy transformation and reproduction.  Visualize the primordial soup where membranes (cells) surrounded different chemical mixes.  In some cells, an RNA-like chemical evolved and, in other cells, photosynthesis (energy transformation) evolved.  To make a living thing, these two cells types came together.  The odds of these two cell-types even evolving are small but the chances of these two cell-types evolving within the same cell are infinitesimal.  It is more likely that an emergent process “merged” these two cell types together, creating a living cell.  A living cell is nothing like either of the separate cells.  It isn't magic, but it isn't evolutionary either.

Let’s stay with the life example to discuss how new interactions leads to new selection criteria.

Extending the example above, a living organism uses energy to power its reproductive system.  That energy is produced from sunlight, a limited resource.  Energy efficient organisms succeed because they reproduce more and crowd out less efficient organisms.  A new selection criterion was formed when a new interaction, pairing energy formation with reproduction, required a limited resource. After living things are created, biological evolution, via genetic mutation, takes over. Eventually, a new emergent event creates a new type of interaction – for example, multi-cellular or more specialized organisms.  In this manner a new selection criteria forms and the hierarchy develops.

While it’s tempting to assign emergence to an Intelligent Designer, it’s too early to make that determination.  Throughout history, processes that were deemed too complex to occur “naturally” were assigned to an Intelligent Designer, only to be reversed upon further knowledge. 

Evolution is an incomplete description of how the universe unfolds. Only by pairing the evolutionary process with the emergent process does one get the complete picture. 

Why are dreams so weird?

The topic of why we dream will be dealt with later, but I wanted to talk about why dreams are so strange. One thing that everyone I've spoken with agrees on is that there is never anything out of place in a dream. I've had dreams where I was in college but my classes were in my elementary school building.  People fly all the time in their dreams and it never seems out of place.  Why?  Our brains developed two major functional parts - one for intuitive thinking and one for analytic thinking. The intuitive part is similar to our heart and lungs - it works all the time and takes very low energy to operate.  We recognize familiar places and faces effortlessly because of this part of our brain.  The analytic part of our brain has been shown to use up a great deal of energy; your head can really hurt from thinking too much. Like any organ that uses energy in spurts, it needs to rest.  Because our bodies evolved to rest our large muscles' the analytic portion of our brain rests during that same period of time.  With the analytic part of our brain resting, there is nothing to register nonsense, so anything goes in our dreams.  When the analytic part of our brain kicks in, we wake up, realize we were dreaming, and begin the dream analysis.

What is Dark Matter?

With the mysterious name, Dark Matter, you'd think there was something weird going on.  Despite the name, it really isn't that strange.  All matter is defined by the way they interact; where an interaction is defined by an exchange of something.  Quantum matter has three ways it can interact (the three quantum forces) and the interaction is "carried" by quantum particles.  As you move up the universe's hierarchy, interactions get more complicated.   Living matter introduces new ways of interaction, much more complicated than quantum interactions, but interactions just the same.  Just as life emerged from Earth's primordial "soup", quantum matter emerged from the universe's Dark Matter. Quantum matter is Dark Matter which interacts according to quantum interactions (the  three quantum forces).  Dark matter doesn't interact according to quantum interactions (forces).  How does Dark Matter interact?  We don't know; we need studies to determine Dark Matter interactions.

Howard...