↪Gnomon
Maybe "cosmic evolution" would have been a more appropriate term to use? The concept itself is that every "thing" within the universe/cosmos evolves via some form of selection that is fully natural. Back in my twenties, I upheld physicalism and causal determinism with a "naturalistic pantheism" worldview - held for ontological reasons. Things have since then changed for me. But the concept I've just outlined intrigued me back then - as it still does, though now within a different ontological frame of mind (one of non-physicalism and of a partially determinate indeterminism). — javra

Sorry. I thought you were referring to a more universal theory of evolution, that would expand on Darwin's biological focus, to a more general understanding of how the primitive proto-physics of the Big Bang has matured into current cosmic-scale, macro-scale, and sub-atomic physics. That incremental process of Emergence*1 has now progressed to the point of producing, not just more complexity, but the astonishing emergence of novelty, including meta-physical Minds, and "non-physical" Consciousness.

The Phenomenon of Man was such a theory. But that was a century ago. I would be interested in an update, that attempts to explain Natural Selection on a cosmic scale. In fact, I have made my own amateur attempt at a hypothesis of Cosmic Evolution, based on 21st century Information Theory*2.

Darwin saw a parallel, with "Selection" by human minds, in the workings of Nature. Both are Natural in the sense of A> a teleological act by a physical organism, and B> a mathematical computation of inputs & outputs. No divine intervention was necessary to convert a wolf into a dog. It's doubtful that such a human-friendly predator would have evolved without Artificial selection. And it's unlikely that the various ancient human breeders had any far future vision of the domesticated results of their individual personal-preference choices.

Yet today, genetic engineers, are able to create designer dogs to specifications. However, the basic principles*3 of genetic evolution are inherent in Nature, and one species of Nature's pets has discovered those universal truths, and learned to apply them with god-like creativity. So, it seems that Nature has evolved it's own lineage of little creators.

The postulated "new law of evolution" seems to focus on the mathematical/logical functions*4 of the process of creating new forms from old. But didn't I see much elaboration on that aspect in the Abstract. And I doubt that the scientists were thinking in terms of PanTheism or PanPsychism, but they may be presciently & unknowingly thinking in terms of Enformationism*5. :joke:


*1. Emergence :
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
Note --- This is a Holistic term, not normally used in Reductive Physics

*2. Novelty, Information and Surprise :
The generalized information concept is called novelty and it is accompanied by two concepts derived from it, designated as information and surprise, which describe "opposite" versions of novelty, information being related more to classical information theory and surprise being related more to the classical concept of statistical significance.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-65875-8

*3. Evolutionary dynamics :
Evolutionary dynamics is the study of the mathematical principles according to which biological organisms as well as cultural ideas evolve and evolved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_dynamics

*4. Quote from OP
"The new work postulates a ‘law of increasing functional information,’ which states that a system will evolve ‘if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions".

*5. Enformationism :
A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to ancient Materialism and/or Creationism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's a Theory of Everything that covers, not just Matter & Energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Note --- En-Formation is causal Energy plus limiting Laws (directional regulation). Equivalent to Plato's First Cause, aka Logos. Enformationism is an information-based philosophical theory of Cosmic Evolution.

Darwin saw a parallel, with "Selection" by human minds, in the workings of Nature. Both are Natural in the sense of A> a teleological act by a physical organism, and B> a mathematical computation of inputs & outputs. — Gnomon

In his "On the Origin of Species", I don't recall Darwin mentioning natural selection to necessarily incorporate "a teleological act by a physical organism", or by any other type of psyche whatsoever for that matter (this being strictly limited to artificial, rather than natural, selection). One can find arguments such as this paper presents that Darwin was in fact utilizing teleology (one can simply read the article's abstract and conclusion for the general idea), but Darwin was by no means one to believe in a global-watchmaker-god sort of mindset as concerns any of the teleological processes involved in natural selection. Nor does he anywhere mention anything close to "a mathematical computation of inputs & outputs" - Malthusianism is certainly not that, for example. To the extent that I find the quote above rather jarring.

I would be interested in an update, that attempts to explain Natural Selection on a cosmic scale. — Gnomon

Yes, so would I. My own criteria for accepting any novel idea in this regard to me seems rather simple: does it manage to ontologically explain how life and its biological evolution evolved from nonlife and its here assumed cosmic evolution - this rather than merely supposing that it somehow did. If yes, then I'll bite.

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ps. "On the Origin of Species" is a very worthwhile read. And one can arguably find heavier leaning on teleological reasoning - i.e., explanations in terms of ends, or objectives, etc. - in his third book "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals", which to me is an essential read for the field of psychology (and this coming from a present non-physicalist).

In his "On the Origin of Species", I don't recall Darwin mentioning natural selection to necessarily incorporate "a teleological act by a physical organism", or by any other type of psyche whatsoever for that matter (this being strictly limited to artificial, rather than natural, selection). — javra

Yes. My use of "teleology" in the quote was ironic. Darwin's term "natural selection" was probably intended to avoid any interpretations of super-natural intervention. But his model for how natural selection works was based on examples of artificial (human) selection. Yet, what was supposed to distinguish Natural Selection from Artificial Selection was the assumption that teleological foresight of a sentient being was un-necessary. However, Darwin later admitted that Random Chance was not a reasonable alternative to some kind of Intentional Causation*1.

In retrospect though, the article you linked to does find implications for a necessary teleological interpretation of natural evolution*2. And that is just what I concluded in my own Enformationism thesis. As a non-theist, I was not looking for a super-natural explanation for the origin & evolution of the real world*3. And I don't accept ancient myths as reliable sources of technical information about how & why the world came to be, and to become. So, I typically use ancient philosophical terminology to describe my incomplete understanding of those hows & whys. Personally --- philosophically and scientifically --- I have a preference for Logical Teleology over Accidental Cosmology*4.

Plato's notion of Ideal Forms --- as the source of all Real Things in the known world --- is one such term. Also, Aristotle's Prime Mover & First Cause*5 arguments make sense to me, even in the light of modern post-Bang cosmology, which is temporally finite. Likewise, my own speculations about a pre-Bang creation event use non-religious terminology, in a futile attempt to avoid denunciations due to prejudice against both religion-in-general, and pre-science philosophy in particular. Yet, since empirical Science has no actual evidence of the origins of the Evolution Algorithm, why not use the theoretical methods of philosophy to go beyond the Big Bang barrier? :smile:



*1. Darwin's First Cause :
Even Darwin himself admitted, regarding “blind chance or necessity”, that “I am compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man and I deserve to be called a theist”. Perhaps not a biblical Theist, but an enlightenment Deist. Even theistic botanist, Asa Grey, noted that, “Darwinian teleology has the special advantage of accounting for the imperfections and failures as well as for successes”. And that is also the case for the Intelligent Evolution corollary to the thesis of Enformationism.
http://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page14.html
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/575509

*2. Teleological Selection :
Darwin's explanatory practices conform well, however, to recent defenses of the teleological
character of selection explanations.
https://inters.org/files/lennox1993.pdf

*3. Teleological Creation :
From a philosophical perspective though, my interest is universal & cosmic. And modern Cosmology has confirmed the intuition of the ancients, that the Cosmos is distinguished from Chaos in that it is precisely enformed : apparently structured to serve some overall purpose.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13752/why-science-has-succeeded-but-religion-has-failed/p9

*4. Logical Teleology vs Random Cosmology :
https://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page14.html

*5. The Cosmological Argument :
Aristotle rules out an infinite progression of causes, so that led to the conclusion that there must be a First Cause.
https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%203%20Religion/Cosmological.htm

Yes, so would I. My own criteria for accepting any novel idea in this regard to me seems rather simple: does it manage to ontologically explain how life and its biological evolution evolved from nonlife and its here assumed cosmic evolution - this rather than merely supposing that it somehow did. If yes, then I'll bite. — javra

In my Enformationism thesis, life-from-non-life was the core mystery to be explained by any new Cosmology. Materialism has nothing to offer on that front. And Spiritualism is tainted with millennia of religious & philosophical debasement. So, my amateur proposal is based on the ubiquity of generic Information at all levels of cosmic ontology : Matter, Life, & Mind. In the thesis & blog, I have been exploring that angle for several years. But the diverse roles of Information, in the development of a simple Singularity into a complex Cosmos, are usually viewed in isolation, rather than in conjunction --- as a whole system.

My own journey of exploration of Information began with John A. Wheeler's*1 "it from bit" conjecture, back in 1989. Yet, that postulation wasn't taken very seriously by his fellow physicists. Except for Paul Davies*2, who has made a new career path from following that notion wherever it leads. Since then, I have been trailing the pioneers --- who are mostly physicists & mathematicians, along with a few philosophers --- in order to develop my own personal hypothesis of Enformationism*3. It postulates how a primitive Big Bang could create the amazing world --- of Matter, Life & Mind --- that we now observe, up close & personal, and through the far-seeing Webb space observatory.

A key concept of the thesis is that the word "Information" refers to the act of giving meaningful or functional Form to something : originally a human mind*4. But physicists now equate causal Information, not just with computer Data, but also with universal physical Energy. So, in the beginning, there was Information as the creative Energy of Big Bang, and as the informing algorithm of the Singularity. All together, those elementary forces have constructed a universe of Matter, Life & Mind. :smile:


*1. Forget Space-Time: Information May Create the Cosmos :
What are the basic building blocks of the cosmos? Atoms, particles, mass energy? Quantum mechanics, forces, fields? Space and time — space-time? Tiny strings with many dimensions?
A new candidate is "information," which some scientists claim is the foundation of reality. The late distinguished physicist John Archibald Wheeler characterized the idea as "It from bit" — "it" referring to all the stuff of the universe and "bit" meaning information.
https://www.space.com/29477-did-information-create-the-cosmos.html

*2. The Search for Biogenesis :
Cosmologists, physicists, biologists—there is no shortage of scientists who have sought to explain how living things might have arisen on Earth and elsewhere in the universe. . . . .
Of those who have studied the origin of life, among the most prolific and influential is Paul Davies, an expert in each of the aforementioned fields. Now a professor at Arizona State University, Davies spent the first decades of his award-winning career studying quantum physics; in the 1990s, he started expanding his focus to astrobiology and cosmology, drawing on his background as a physicist to bring an uncommon perspective to the problem of biogenesis.
https://www.magiscenter.com/blog/paul-davies-the-search-for-biogenesis

*3. Enformationism :
A worldview or belief system grounded on the assumption that Information, rather than Matter, is the basic substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be an update to the 17th century paradigm of Materialism, and to the ancient ideologies of Spiritualism. It's a "substance" in the sense of Aristotle's definition as metaphysical Essence.
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html

*4. Information :
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest historical meaning of the word information in English was the act of informing, or giving form or shape to the mind, as in education, instruction, or training.
The English word was apparently derived by adding the common "noun of action" ending "-ation"
___Wikipedia
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html
Note --- Hence, En-Form-Action --- my coinage for Programmed Energy.