V. Life's Corporeal Evolution Develops, Encodes and Organizes Itself: An EarthWinian Genesis Synthesis

A. A Major Emergent Evolutionary Transitions Scale

Suki, Bela. The Major Transitions of Life from a Network Perspective. Frontiers in Fractal Physiology. 3/Article 94, 2012. The major transitions theory of an episodic, recurrent evolution from biomolecules to genomes, cells, mammals, brains, primates, and language, first proposed in 1995, has gained much acceptance. In the years since, a new nature has been realized as vitally suffused with complex, dynamical systems. A Boston University professor of Biomedical Engineering can now deftly elucidate the role of ubiquitous network topologies in this nested emergence, as the quotes attest. In regard, the addition of these propensities leads to several implications. A generic sequence becomes apparent for stage changes akin to phase transitions in statistical physics. The dynamic recast of evolution then infers an iterative self-organization at work at each scale. Finally, from 2012, Bela Suki muses whether we might be in the midst of a further ascent to a worldwide humankind noopshere.

In an influential work, Maynard Smith and Szathmáry argued that the majority of the increase in complexity is not gradual, but it is associated with a few so-called major transitions along the way of the evolution of life. For each major transition, they identified specific mechanisms that could account for the change in complexity related to information transmission across generations. In this work, I propose that the sudden and unexpected improvement in the functionality of an organism that followed a major transition was enabled by a phase transition in the network structure associated with that function. The increase in complexity following a major transition is therefore directly linked to the emergence of a novel structure–function relation which altered the course of evolution. As a consequence, emergent phenomena arising from these network phase transitions can serve as a common organizing principle for understanding the major transitions. As specific examples, I analyze the emergence of life, the emergence of the genetic apparatus, the rise of the eukaryotic cells, the evolution of movement and mechanosensitivity, and the emergence of consciousness. (Abstract)

Here I will argue that the basis of the new kind of behavior post-transition is a fundamental change in the structure pre-transition. If each major transition can be linked to the emergence of a novel structure, then there man by a common mechanism behind these transitions related to the complexity of the underlying structural organization. (1) The theory of complexity has much to offer to understand life and its major transitions. Specifically, complexity deals with systems that show emergent behavior resulting from the interactions of many components or subunits of the system. A convenient way to discuss such systems is to consider the interactions among the units as a network. (1-2) If we accept the notion that the structural basis of life is a network, then the “emergence” of living matter maybe associated with the emergence of a suitable network structure that allows processes associated with life. (4) Thus, network phenomena under non-equilibrium conditions mist have played a key role in the very first major transition, the origin of life, independent of the precise details of chemistry. (5)

As mentioned earlier, fractal structures and long-range correlated fluctuations naturally appear at the critical point during phase transitions providing thus an intriguing link between non-equilibrium conditions, ordered structures and the corresponding novel functions related to the major transitions of life. (9) If the major transition are indeed a network associated phase transition, then, to some extent, they should be independent of the details of the system. With regard to the first transition, the origin of life, does this suggest that a transition is likely to occur in any sufficiently rich soup of raw materials largely independent of the specifics of chemistry? Given the steady discovery of Earth-like planets, an important implication of this would be that some sort of a self-sustaining primitive life should abound in the universe. (10)

What is the expected impact of a new transition, biological or other, on human society? It is evident that even over the short time period of human evolution, various new networks have emerged and transitions occurred. A recent and perhaps most revolutionizing network in terms of human experience is the internet. As the complexity of the internet increases, is it possible to live through a phase transition such that the internet acquires some form of intelligence or consciousness? Also, consciousness is certainly an emergent phenomenon arising from the neural network connectivity of the brain. Could the human species undergo yet another phase transition? (11)

Sumner, Seirian, et al. Molecular Patterns and Processes in Evolving Sociality: Lessons from Insects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. February, 2023. In a special issue on Collective Behavior through Time, University College London, Iowa State University and York University, Toronto biobehaviorists proceed to trace life’s recurrent propensity to come together in viable assemblies for better evolutionary survival on to this early invertebrate level

Social insects have provided some clearest insights into the origins and evolution of collective behaviour. Over 20 years ago, Maynard Smith and Szathmáry situated complex insect behavior among the major transitions in evolution. However, the processes that underlie the rise from solitary life to a superorganism remain elusive. We present a framework to see if nonlinear step-wise evolution) or linear (incremental evolution) changes in molecular mechanisms are involved. We assess the evidence for these two modes how this framework can be used to test the generality of molecular patterns and processes across other major transitions. (Abstract excerpt)

Szathmary, Eors. Cultural Processes: The Latest Major Transition in Evolution. Nadel, Lynn, editor-in-chief. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. London: Nature Publishing Group, 2003. A concise summary of the late John Maynard Smith and Szathmary’s theory of evolution as a sequential emergence from molecular gene to human social levels. This increase in complexity proceeds through a recurrent process of divergence, symbiosis, and epigenesis which goes on to form a “higher” whole entity. Each stage is also characterized by a new genetic template from DNA to language. And this scenario is just what would be found if life’s evolution is in fact a self-organizing complex adaptive system.

Szathmary, Eors. Evolution of Language as One of the Major Evolutionary Transitions. Nolfi, Stefano and Marco Mirolli, eds. Evolution of Communication and Language in Embodied Agents. Berlin: Springer, 2010. The cofounder with John Maynard Smith of this large conceptual advance expands on its current linguistic phase. Since social discourse is appreciated as a main formative agency for hominid group culture, language is to be rightly seen as a “novel inheritance system.”

Major transitions happened a number of times in evolution, and always resulted in a significant increase in complexity. For example, the eukaryotic cell is a result of the coming together and coevolution of some initially independent microbial lineages, or multicellular living being arose either through the sticking together or aggregation of related cells. There are some recurrent themes in the major transitions: (1) Independently replicating units come together to form a higher-level unit. (2) Appearance of novel inheritance systems. (3) Division of labor or combination of functions. (4) Contingent irreversibility. (5) Central Control. (49-50)

Szathmary, Eors. Toward Major Evolutionary Transition Theory 2.0. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112/10104, 2015. A presentation at the October 2014 NAS Sackler Colloquium: Symbioses Becoming Permanent: The Origins and Evolutionary Trajectories of Organelles by the Eotvos University, Hungary, biologist and founder with John Maynard Smith in 1995 of this natural iterative scale. This 20 year review and update of nuances and verifications serves to aver its current mainstream acceptance. From protocells at life’s origin to nucleotides, eukaryotic cells, plastid organelles, organisms, eusocial cooperation onto symbolic human sapience, a nested sequence was facilitated in each case by a novel informational “inheritance system.” Gradual Darwinian selection is not mentioned, presently replaced by this axial oriented emergence, which quite bodes for a genesis synthesis.

From Lower to Higher Level Evolutionary Units The first common feature is the transition from independent replicators to form higher level units: for example, genes ganged up in protocells, prokaryotes joined to constitute the eukaryotic cell, protist cells stacked together to form multicellular organisms, and so on. In order for such a transition to be successful, evolution at the lower level must be somehow constrained by the higher level. I adopt the view of (Andrew) Bourke (search), who suggested that major transitions should typically be cut into three phases: the formation, maintenance, and transformation of social groups. (10104)

Townsend, Cathryn, et al. Human Cooperation and Evolutionary Transitions. Royal Society Philosophical Transactions B. February, 2023. Baylor University anthropologists and psychologists offer their retrospect of how earlier human social, economic, political and national occasions can be viewed in this light as “egalitarian organisms” with mutual private property and shared resources. In regard, a global phase may at last be able altogether to recognize how it came to appear, coalesce, and succeed whereby an ETI perspective can provide a viable explanation.

A major evolutionary transition in individuality involves the formation of a cooperative group as it becomes a relative personal entity. Human cooperation then shares principles with multicellular organisms that have undergone an emergence. transitions such as division of labour, communication, and fitness interdependence. A hominins adapted to terrestrial niches, we posit that it set in motion a positive feedback pressure for cooperative sociality, communication, brains, cognition, kin relations and technology. As a result, egalitarian societies with cultural mores were formed. Fast forward, the pace of information, innovation and transmission enabled a homo sapiens population growth with growing abilities to cooperate and compete. Alas, socioeconomic inequality, persistent conflict and much more still subverts potential transition of human groups into evolutionary entities. (Excerpt)

Turney, Peter. Modeling Major Transitions in Evolution with the Game of Life. arXiv:1908.07034. We cite this entry (bio below) as a rate exercise to consider and model a further phase of this iterative, nested emergent sequence as it may reach a worldwise personsphere individuality. See also Conditions for Major Transitions in Biological and Cultural Evolution at by the author at arXiv:1806.07941 and Symbiosis Promotes Fitness Improvements in the Game of Life in Artificial Life (26/3, 2020).

Maynard Smith and Szathmáry's book The Major Transitions in Evolution describes eight events in the evolution of life on Earth and a common theme that unites them. In each case, smaller entities came together to form larger, inclusive stages by way of symbiosis and/or cooperation. Here we present a computational simulation of evolving entities that includes symbiosis with shifting levels of selection. The experiments show that a small amount of symbiosis, added to the other layers, significantly increases the fitness of the population. We suggest that, in addition to providing new insights into biological and cultural evolution, this model of symbiosis may have practical applications in evolutionary computation, such as in the task of learning deep neural network models. (Abstract)

Dr. Peter Turney is a scientist based in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. He is currently a Research Scholar with the Ronin Institute since 2018. He was a Senior Research Scientist at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence from 2015 to 2017, a Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) from 1989 to 2014, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa.

Waring, Timothy and Zachary Wood. Long-term Gene-culture Coevolution and the Human Evolutionary Transition. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. May, 2021. University of Maine sustainability scholars provide a latest, thorough study of how our homocene to anthropocene, local to global, emergence can well be appreciated as a further spherical scale. A bibliography from Alfred Kroeber and Herbert Spencer to current work conveys how such a “superorganic” phase has long been suggested. Herein, a historic passage from genetic to cultural “inheritance,” from genome to memory, is found to be a prime causal rationale. Thus we reach Section 4. Rethinking the Human Evolutionary Transition in Individuality. But as we often say, it would be of much benefit to realize that this planetary progeny appears to be learning and gaining knowledge on her/his own.

It has been suggested that the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI). But an issue is how to apply the ETI framework to our species, and whether culture is a cause or consequence. Some have argued that culture steers human evolution, while others propose that genes hold culture on a leash. We review the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans and find a set of common themes. First, culture appears to hold more adaptive potential than inheritance. The evolutionary impact of culture occurs mainly through organized human groupings of many kinds. Second, the role of culture appears to be overtaking genetic evolution. Altogether, these findings suggest that human GC coevolution constitutes an evolutionary transition in inheritance (from genes to culture) and in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). (Abstract excerpt)

Warrell, Jonathan and Mark Gerstein. Cyclical and Multilevel Causation in Evolutionary Processes. Biology & Philosophy. 35/Art.50, 2020. Yale University computational biophysicists and geneticists (search MG) post a 36 page careful consideration of how novel machine learning techniques and models seem able to gain deeper insights about into life’s structured developmental advance, better ways to understand and mitigate diseases and a sense of identities.

We develop here a general theoretical framework for analyzing evolutionary processes drawing on recent approaches to causal modeling developed in the machine-learning literature, which have extended Pearls do-calculus to incorporate cyclic causal interactions and multilevel causation. We show how our causal framework helps to clarify conceptual issues in the contexts of complex trait analysis and cancer genetics, including assigning variation in an observed trait to genetic, epigenetic and environmental sources in the presence of epigenetic and environmental feedback processes, and variation in fitness to mutation processes in cancer using a multilevel causal model respectively. Finally, we consider the potential relevance of our framework to biology and evolution, including supervenience, multilevel selection and individuality. (Abstract excerpt)

Watson, Richard, et al. Design for an Individual: Connectionist Approaches to the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.. March, 2022. This entry to a Major Evolutionary Transitions issue (Nonacs) by RW, University of Southampton, Michael Levin, Tufts University and Christopher Buckley, University of Sussex contributes a quantified affirmation that each subsequent level of life’s emergence does constitute a new personal entity. As the authors (search) have noted, this long oriented course can now define trace a stirring neural cognizance from its basal, minimum origin. As a result, as life and mind evolves and learns, an early connectionism model can gain credible utility. A graphic displays how isolate entities become interactive to an extent that they deepen and form a new, higher relative personal group. The collegial paper achieves a broad, 2020s verification of this nested scale, with all it implies for a personsphere sapience.