Interesting ideas! I'm not sure what would have to be true for the evolution metaphor to make sense, however. Certainly the world is changing, but to say that particles are 'evolving' is a more narrow claim. As I understand the metaphor, at least two things would have to be true that I know next to nothing about (and would appreciate any insight the group could provide):
1) It would have to be the case that particles 'reproduce' themselves in some sense, so that a 'lineage' of some sort could be established. 2) Some particles would have to 'fit' the world better than others, by some externally verifiable criterion independent of their reproductive success. Only then could we claim that the particles around today fit today's world better than the particles of long ago would have. Again, this seems plausible to me, but I am not aware of any evidence. Eric On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 01:49 PM, "Jochen Fromm" <[email protected]> wrote: > I like the idea of "Quantum Evolution" >http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=Quantum_Evolution >Why has nobody tried to combine Darwin and Einstein? >I think this is a wonderful idea. If we treat particles - >esp. fermions - as an apdative unit, then a particle would >be a kind of evolutionary species, and a vertex becomes >a speciation event. Instead of a Feynman diagram we >would have a phylogenetic tree of particles. > >I am not sure how bosons (the force carriers responsible >for interaction) and fermions (the matter carriers which >obey the Pauli exclusion principle) fit into this picture, but >maybe a boson would roughly correspond to a stem cell, >because it is a basic unit of replication which replicates >itself while moving through space-time, and a whole >organism or species to fermions, which cover a certain niche >in the ecology of cosmic evolution (the real reason for the >Pauli exclusion principle?). > >If the universe is really evolutionary on the deepest >level, then there is an important lesson to learn from >the evolution of complex systems: the most abundant, >primitive and tiniest elements are often the oldest >and most fundamental ones. For example algae and bacteria >are countless, tiny and primitive, but they belong to >the most ancient life-forms on earth. Thus the smallest >particles, the insignificant neutrinos with their strange >inclination to oscillate, are perhaps more important than >we think, exactly because they interact only very weakly >with normal matter. > >Therefore I think if there is something revolutionary >to discover, it is more likely the Neutrino than the >Higgs particle which will make the really big headlines, >even if this experiment turns out to be false. > >-J. > > > > >============================================================ >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
