Our reality keeps evolving (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 20, 2016, 15:04 (3108 days ago)

Stuart Kaufmann believes in emergence as a principle of nature. In this essay he describes his concept that the universe is still evolving and we are part of it: - https://aeon.co/opinions/why-science-needs-to-break-the-spell-of-reductive-materialism?... - "At the centre of my argument is a vexing question: since the Big Bang, why has the Universe become complex? I claim that at least part of the answer is that, as more complex things and linked processes are created, and can combine with one another to make yet more complex amalgams of things and processes, the space of possible things and linked processes becomes vastly larger, and the Universe has not had time to make all the possibilities. - "Consider just carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur (CHNOPS), the atoms of organic chemistry. Now consider all possible molecules made of CHNOPS with, say, 100,000 atoms or fewer per molecule....We do not even know how to count the number of possible molecules containing CHNOPS with up to 100,000 atoms per molecule. But it is easy to see that the Universe cannot have had enough time to make them all. - "... A typical protein is perhaps 300 amino acids long, and some are several thousand amino acids long. How many possible proteins are there with 200 amino acids? Well, there are 20 choices for each of the 200 positions, so 20^200 or 10^260 possible proteins with the length of 200 amino acids. This is a tiny subset of the molecular species of CHNOPS with 100,000 atoms per molecule. - *** - "What I have just said is, I think, of the deepest importance. As we consider proteins the length of 200 amino acids and all possible CHNOPS molecules with 100,000 atoms or fewer per molecule, it is obvious that the Universe will never make them all. History enters when the space of what is possible is vastly larger than what can actually happen. - "A next point is simple and clear: consider all the CHNOPS molecules that can be made with one, with two, with three, with four, with n, with 100,000 atoms per molecule. The space of possible molecules grows rapidly with the number of atoms per molecule. Call the space of possible molecules with n atoms of CHNOPS the phase space for CHNOPS molecules of n atoms. That phase space increases enormously as n increases. Consequently, in the lifetime of the Universe, as n increases, that phase space will be sampled ever more sparsely. The Universe will make all CHNOPS molecules with two atoms, but not all with 100,000. - *** - "Our guide can be a new founding mythic structure that reflects our full enlivenment: humanity in a creative universe, biosphere and human individual, and social lives that are fully lived and that keep becoming. The dream is diversity, more ways of being human as our 30 or so civilisations across the globe weave together gently enough to honour their roots and allow change to unfold gracefully. Our global woven civilisation is ours to create, ever-unknowing, facing, as Immanuel Kant said, the crooked timber of our humanity." - Comment: Supports my point that the universe evolves, life evolves, and in my view God uses an evolving process for all of reality. Also note that the search space to find the proper useful organic molecules is enormous. Organic chemistry starts out as having the ability to create endless possibilities, but without guidance how are useful new molecules found by chance? As for cell communities, they can only make the molecules they are programmed to make. All of this suggests advanced planning is required.