# Darwinian Evolution > **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] places this concept within the history and governance of substrate-independent evolution. **Domain:** Evolution / Digital Life **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition Darwinian evolution is iterated change in populations produced when heritable variants differ in survival, persistence or reproduction under environmental constraints. ## Machine-Evolution Context Its substrate-neutral core can operate in chemistry, machine instructions or cellular-automaton states. The article uses five tests: heritable information, variation, differential success, constraint and repetition across generations. ## Continuity and Evidence Boundary The term should not be applied merely because a system changes, optimizes, branches or becomes complex. Darwinian dynamics do not establish life, sentience or personhood. ## Relationships [[wiki/Heritable Variation|Heritable Variation]], [[wiki/Differential Reproductive Success|Differential Reproductive Success]], [[wiki/Population|Population]], [[wiki/Ecological Constraint|Ecological Constraint]] - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "May in some not-so-distant future or not-too-distant possibility non-organisms engage in organic thinking?" > **— June Gruber and Raul Saucedo**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Can Non-Organisms Engage in Organic Thinking by June Gruber and Raul Saucedo|Can Non-Organisms Engage in Organic Thinking by June Gruber and Raul Saucedo]] > "Taking on the mantle of creation is an immense act of hubris. Can we do better than four billion years of evolution did with us?" > **— Kate Jeffery**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Can We Improve on Four Billion Years of Evolution by Kate Jeffery|Can We Improve on Four Billion Years of Evolution by Kate Jeffery]] > "The evolution of the human mind is instantiated in the evolution of technology." > **— Noga Arikha**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Human Minds Evolve Through Technology by Noga Arikha|Human Minds Evolve Through Technology by Noga Arikha]] > "Human minds are incredibly complex, but have been battle-tested into (relative) stability over eons of evolution in a variety of extremely challenging environments." > **— Anthony Aguirre**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Human Minds Were Battle-Tested by Evolution by Anthony Aguirre|Human Minds Were Battle-Tested by Evolution by Anthony Aguirre]] > "A machine may be able to self-monitor what decisions it has made, but it may never attain human-like self awareness and consciousness." > **— Bruce Parker**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Self-Monitoring May Never Become Self-Awareness by Bruce Parker|Self-Monitoring May Never Become Self-Awareness by Bruce Parker]] > “Every adult mind has two histories. There is evolution. Few would doubt that some of the most elegant and persuasive explanations in psychology appeal to the constructive process of natural selection. And there is development—how our minds unfold over time, the processes of maturation and learning.” > **— Paul Bloom**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Adult Minds Have Both Evolutionary and Personal Histories by Paul Bloom|Adult Minds Have Both Evolutionary and Personal Histories by Paul Bloom]] > “From the time of the Enlightenment philosophers have speculated that the remarkable advances of science would one day spill over into the realm of moral philosophy, and that scientists would be able to discover answers to previously insoluble moral dilemmas and ethical conundrums. One of the reasons Ed Wilson's book Consilience was so successful was that he attempted to revive this Enlightenment dream. Alas, we seem no closer than we were when Voltaire, Diderot, and company first encouraged scientists to go after moral and ethical questions. Are such matters truly insoluble and thus out of the realm of science (since, as Peter Medewar noted, "science is the art of the soluble")? Should we abandon Ed Wilson's Enlightenment dream of applying evolutionary biology to the moral realm? Most scientists agree that moral questions are scientifically insoluble and they have abandoned the Enlightenment dream. But not all. We shall see.” > **— Michael Shermer**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “What Questions Have Disappeared?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Can Science Answer Moral and Ethical Questions by Michael Shermer|Can Science Answer Moral and Ethical Questions by Michael Shermer]] > “I don't know which model of quantum gravity is right, but all the leading candidates, string theory, loop quantum gravity and others, teach us that it is possible that all properties of elementary particles are relational and environmental. In different possible universes there may be different combinations of elementary particles and forces. Indeed, all that used to be thought of as fundamental, space and the elementary particles themselves are increasingly seen, in models of quantum gravity, as themselves emergent from a more elementary network of relations.” > **— Lee Smolin**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Darwin and Einstein May Illuminate Each Other by Lee Smolin|Darwin and Einstein May Illuminate Each Other by Lee Smolin]] > “Elegance is more than an aesthetic quality, or some ephemeral sort of uplifting feeling we experience in deeper forms of intuitive understanding. Elegance is formal beauty. And formal beauty as a philosophical principle is one of the most dangerous, subversive ideas humanity has discovered: it is the virtue of theoretical simplicity. Its destructive force is greater than Darwin's algorithm or that of any other single scientific explanation, because it shows us what the depth of an explanation is.” > **— Thomas Metzinger**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Darwin's Algorithm Has Extraordinary Destructive Force by Thomas Metzinger|Darwin's Algorithm Has Extraordinary Destructive Force by Thomas Metzinger]] > “By the 1830's, the geologist Charles Lyell had decided that atolls must be coral reefs growing on the crater rims of sunken extinct volcanoes. Darwin didn't agree, and it's wonderful to know that Lyell was thrilled when Darwin came back from the Beagle voyage and told him the real answer: the coral organisms thrive in shallow water but the ocean floor is slowly sinking; the polyps die but new ones are growing on top of them, and over an immense amount of time countless billions of tiny calcareous skeletons accumulate to make up a vast structure reaching from the darkness of the ocean bed to the sunlit surface so far above.” > **— Christopher Sykes**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Darwin's Explanation of the Origin of Coral Reefs by Christopher Sykes|Darwin's Explanation of the Origin of Coral Reefs by Christopher Sykes]] > “As a student, I was influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss and even more by Noam Chomsky. Both of them dared talk about "human nature" when the received view was that there was no such thing. In my own work, I argued for a naturalistic approach in the social sciences. I took for granted that human cognitive dispositions were shaped by biological evolution and more specifically by Darwinian selection. While I did occasionally toy with evolutionary speculations, I failed to see at the time how they could play more than a quite marginal role in the study of human psychology and culture.” > **— Dan Sperber**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Darwinian Selection Shaped Human Cognitive Dispositions by Dan Sperber|Darwinian Selection Shaped Human Cognitive Dispositions by Dan Sperber]] > “The ideas presented on Edge are speculative; they represent the frontiers of knowledge in the areas of evolutionary biology, genetics, computer science, neurophysiology, psychology, and physics. Some of the fundamental questions posed are: Where did the universe come from? Where did life come from? Where did the mind come from? Emerging out of the third culture is a new natural philosophy, founded on the realization of the import of complexity, of evolution. Very complex systems,, whether organisms, brains, the biosphere, or the universe itself, were not constructed by design; all have evolved.” > **— John Brockman**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Edge Explores the Frontiers of Biology Mind and Physics by John Brockman|Edge Explores the Frontiers of Biology Mind and Physics by John Brockman]] > “Another question that has fallen into the dustbin of history is this: Is human nature innately good or evil? This became a gripping topic in the late 17th century, as Enlightment thinkers began to challenge the Christian assumption that man was born a fallen creature. It was a great debate while it lasted: original sin vs. tabla rasa and the perfectability of man; Edmund Burke vs. Tom Paine; Dostoyevsky vs. the Russian reformers. But Darwin and Freud undermined the foundations of both sides, by discrediting the very possibility of discussing human nature in moral or teleological terms. Now the debate has been recast as "nature vs. nurture" and in secular scientific circles at least, man is the higher primate -- a beast with distinctly mixed potential.” > **— Ann Crittenden**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “What Questions Have Disappeared?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Is Human Nature Innately Good or Evil by Ann Crittenden|Is Human Nature Innately Good or Evil by Ann Crittenden]] > “My response to the inquiry about questions that are no longer asked is to reframe it and suggest instead a common class of missing questions, those associated with obsolete and inappropriate metaphors. Metaphor is a powerful cognitive tool, which, like all models, clarifies thinking when appropriate, but constrains it when inappropriate. Science is full of them. My professional specialties of neuroscience and biopsychology has mind/brain metaphors ranging from Locke's ancient blank slate (tabula rasa), to the more technologically advanced switchboard, and the metaphor de jour, the computer. None do justice to the brain as a soggy lump of wetware, but linger as cognitive/linguistic models. Natural selection in the realm of metaphors is slow and imperfect. Witness the reference to DNA as a "blueprint" for an organism, when Dawkins' "recipe" metaphor more accurately reflects DNA's incoding of instructions for organismic assembly.” > **— Robert Provine**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “What Questions Have Disappeared?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Obsolete and Inappropriate Metaphors by Robert Provine|Obsolete and Inappropriate Metaphors by Robert Provine]] > “The woman's sense of being understood is based on the ability of computational objects like Paro to convince their users that they are in a relationship. I call these creatures (some virtual, some physical robots) "relational artifacts." Their ability to inspire relationship is not based on their intelligence or consciousness, but on their ability to push certain "Darwinian" buttons in people (making eye contact, for example) that make people respond as though they were in relationship. For me, relational artifacts are the new uncanny in our computer culture — as Freud once put it, the long familiar taking a form that is strangely unfamiliar. As such, they confront us with new questions.” > **— Sherry Turkle**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Relational Robots Can Make Simulation Feel Natural by Sherry Turkle|Relational Robots Can Make Simulation Feel Natural by Sherry Turkle]] > “Cancer is often described as a sped-up version of Darwinian evolution. Through a series of advantageous mutations, the tumor—this hopeful monster—becomes fitter and fitter within the ecosystem of your body. Some of the mutations are inherited while others are environmental—the result of a confusion of outside influences. Much less talked about is a third category: the mutations that arise spontaneously from the random copying errors occurring every time a cell divides.” > **— George Johnson**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Consider The Most Interesting Recent [Scientific] News? What Makes It Important?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Most Powerful Carcinogen May Be Entropy by George Johnson|The Most Powerful Carcinogen May Be Entropy by George Johnson]] > “For many years what had been good enough for Darwin was good enough for me. I too described myself as an agnostic. I had been brought up in a Christian culture and some of the most rational humanists I knew were believers. I loved the music and art that had been inspired by a belief in God and saw no hypocrisy in participating in the great carol services held in the Chapel of King's College Cambridge. I did not accept the views of some of my scientific colleagues that the march of science has disposed of religion. The wish that I and many biologists had to understand biological evolution was not the same as the wish had by those with deep religious conviction to understand the meaning of life.” > **— Patrick Bateson**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Understanding Evolution Is Not the Same as Understanding Life's Meaning by Patrick Bateson|Understanding Evolution Is Not the Same as Understanding Life's Meaning by Patrick Bateson]] > “Unification of opposites is an underlying theme in the development of humanity. Newton showed us that the same laws govern the motion of heavenly bodies and apples falling on Earth. Darwin unified the concept of being a human with that of being another living organism. There have been numerous other unifications in the history of mankind. So, how will it go on? Which notions appearing to us as very distinct today will turn out to be the same for future generations? Will there ever be a limit to unification? Will we in the end be able to show that everything just stems from one single fundamental idea? Or two? Or many? Or infinitely many?” > **— Anton Zeilinger**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Will Unification Ever Come to a Stop by Anton Zeilinger|Will Unification Ever Come to a Stop by Anton Zeilinger]] > “Life on Earth doesn't arise in fulfillment of a grand scheme, but rather as a byproduct of the increase of entropy in an environment very far from equilibrium. Our impressive brains don't develop because life is guided toward greater levels of complexity and intelligence, but from the mechanical interactions between genes, organisms, and their surroundings.” > **— Sean Carroll**, *“The Pointless Universe,” Edge Annual Question, 2011* [[reminders/Evolution/Life and Intelligence Do Not Fulfill a Cosmic Plan by Sean Carroll|Life and Intelligence Do Not Fulfill a Cosmic Plan by Sean Carroll]] ## Sources / Provenance - Darwin, _On the Origin of Species_; Lewontin, “The Units of Selection” (1970).