More than 150 years ago, humans began to propose macroscopic natural laws that describe and explain common phenomena in nature, and a newly published paper proposes a new macroscopic natural law - evolution is a common feature of complex systems in the natural world.

Is evolution everywhere? Is the universe getting more complex?

At about 3 a.m. on October 17, Beijing time, the international academic journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" published a paper online, claiming to have discovered the "missing laws of nature" and recognizing the natural laws for the first time. An important norm in the operation of the world is the "Law of Increasing Functional Information".

Only life evolves?

“Charles Darwin eloquently illustrated the way plants and animals evolve by natural selection,” said study leader Robert M. Hazen, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Geophysical Laboratory. We believe that Darwinian theory is just a very special, very important example of a much larger natural phenomenon. The concept of functional selection driving evolution applies equally to stars, atoms, minerals, and many other conceptually equivalent cases, many of which are configured Under selection pressure.”

Dr. Michael L. Wong, the first author of the aforementioned paper and an astrobiologist (a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of life and searches for traces of life in space) and planetary scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, said: " In this new paper, we consider evolution in its broadest sense ...including Darwinian evolution based on 'improved descent.'" "The universe produces novel combinations of atoms, molecules, cells, and so on. Those that are stable and can continue to produce more Combinations of many novel things will continue to evolve. That's why life is the most striking example of evolution. But evolution is everywhere."

The nine authors of the paper come from institutions such as the Carnegie Institution for Science, the California Institute of Technology, and Cornell University, and include philosophers of science, astrobiologists, data scientists, mineralogists, and theoretical physicists.

Researchers believe that evolution occurs when a novel configuration works well and improves functionality, regardless of whether the system is alive or inanimate. Complex natural systems evolve into states of greater patterning, diversity, and complexity.

In other words, evolution is not limited to life on Earth ; it also occurs in other large-scale, complex systems, from planets and stars to atoms, minerals, and more. The "law of increased functional information" states that if many different configurations of a system experience the selection of one or more functions, then the system will evolve and the functional information of the system will increase.

The evolutionary history of life is full of novelties: photosynthesis "evolved" when single cells "learned" to harness light energy. Multicellular life "evolved" as cells learned to "cooperate" with each other. And species evolved thanks to many beneficial new behaviors such as swimming, walking, flying, and thinking.

The same evolution occurred in the mineral kingdom. The earliest minerals represented particularly stable arrangements of atoms. These primitive minerals laid the foundation for the next generation of minerals and were also involved in the origin of life. The evolution of life and minerals are intertwined because life uses minerals to make shells, teeth and bones.

Ammonites. As the Earth formed, new geological processes gave rise to more than 1,500 new minerals. The interaction of iron with oxygen-containing minerals transformed ancient life as photosynthesis began. Biodiversity leads to mineral diversity and vice versa.

In fact, there were only about 20 types of minerals on Earth at the beginning of the solar system, but due to complex physical, chemical, and ultimately biological processes over 4.5 billion years, the number of known minerals today is close to 6,000.

The newly published paper claims that when it comes to stars, only two main elements - hydrogen and helium - formed the first stars shortly after the Big Bang. The earliest stars used hydrogen and helium to create about 20 heavier chemical elements. The next generation of stars will produce nearly 100 more elements based on the aforementioned diversity.

macroscopic laws of nature

Macroscopic natural laws are used to describe and explain common phenomena in nature. For example, the laws of nature related to force and motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and energy were described more than 150 years ago. The latest paper proposed above proposes a modern supplement - evolution is a common feature of complex systems in the natural world. The research team believes that its characteristics include:

They are made up of many different components, such as atoms, molecules, or cells, that can be arranged and rearranged repeatedly;

Influenced by natural processes, resulting in countless different arrangements;

Only a small subset of all these configurations "survive" a process called "feature selection."

Dr. Huang said an important component of this newly proposed law of nature is the idea of "functional selection."

In biological terms, Darwin equated “function” primarily with “survival”—the ability to live long enough to produce fertile offspring.

Newly published research expands on Darwin 's previous point of view , pointing out that there are at least three "functions" in nature : the most basic function is stability-selecting a stable arrangement of atoms or molecules; also capable of lasting existence is a continuous supply of energy. Dynamic systems; The third and most interesting function is "novelty" - evolving systems have a tendency to explore new structures, which sometimes leads to surprising new behaviors or characteristics.

The aforementioned "static persistence", "dynamic persistence" and "generation of novelty" are the basic sources of "functional selection" . The aforementioned paper also proposed a time asymmetry law, that is, when the functional information of a system is subject to functional selection, its functional information will increase over time.

The newly published theory is thought to complement the second law of thermodynamics - the entropy (disorder) of an isolated system increases over time (heat always flows from hotter to cooler objects).

In addition, the aforementioned paper proposed many new ideas. For example, if there is a dividing line between life and non-life related to "functional selection", can we determine the "rules of life" to distinguish the biological dividing line in astrobiology research? This may help humans search for extraterrestrial life.