The whole Universe evolves, so does life on Earth, and so does human society. What is the aim of evolution, if there is one? It could be only aimless change, chance fluctuations like Brownian motion, but it does not seem to be. It has been evolution toward complexity.
Evolution toward complexity is impossible in a closed system, because of the law of entropy. Change should be toward disorder, down the slope of free energy hills. But the Universe is an open system, because of its continuing expansion since the Big Bang — even an accelerated expansion, as discovered recently.
Expansion continues to create free energy differences, which can be exploited by self-organizing anti-entropic systems, tending toward greater and greater complexity. Even a car without power can move uphill, if it contains a ratchet that cancels out downwards movement, and a randomly fluctuating regime is applied. The fluctuations alone can slowly propel it upwards. This can serve as a model of evolution, with natural selection acting as the ratchet that tends to prevent downward movement.
Life, of course, is an anti-entropic system, increasing order inside organisms while exporting entropy to the environment, thus preserving the validity of the entropy law. Most of the Universe is hostile to life. Only a narrow spherical shell around the centre of our Galaxy (and probably other galaxies as well) can sustain life. Too close to the centre there is too much radiation from the massive black hole and too many collisions of particles, asteroids and comets. Too far from the centre there are not enough elements beyond hydrogen and helium, such heavier elements being necessary for life. Our Sun is within this life-friendly belt.
Similarly, there is only a narrow shell around the Sun in our solar system that can keep water in the liquid state, and thus support life. Too close to the Sun a planet is too hot, like Mercury and Venus. Too far away from the Sun, a planet is too cold, like the outer gaseous planets; Mars may be in an ambiguous position. The Earth is situated in this life-friendly shell. According to the Goldilocks principle, we are not too hot nor too cold, but “just right”. We are not in a region too frenzied or too impoverished in the Galaxy. We occupy prime real estate, rare in the Universe. Is it Providence or the anthropic principle? If we tried to be anywhere else, we could not succeed, and could not therefore think about it.
We also occupy a privileged position in time, the fourth dimension. The very early universe contained no galaxies, stars or planets, and no elements beyond the original hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium. The late Universe, to come after us, may contain only black holes, neutron stars, white dwafs and other star remnants and debris, quickly moving away from each other in a vast dark void of degraded energy. Life will not be there, or any scientists to observe and discuss it.
Evolution of life on Earth did occur, but this is nevertheless a contingency, not a necessity; though not quite chance either. There is a chemical tendency to form simple molecules like sugars and amino acids, and plenty of free energy to polymerize them to macromolecules like proteins and nucleic acids, especially because some of the latter can act as enzymes to greatly accelerate the reactions, while others act as templates to preseve information (which is the opposite of entropy) and to facilitate accurate reproduction. However, actual events might have gone otherwise. As Stephen Gould asserted, rewinding the tape of evolution (both pre-biotic and subsequent) and starting again, would most probably produce different results: either no stable life at all, or vastly different species.
Socio-cultural evolution in human societies (taking a huge leap forward) is about a million times faster than biological evolution, because we can deliberately direct it to suit our purposes and intentions, and because we can transmit innovations across generations to our descendents. In other words, social evolution is Lamarkian, no longer Darwinian.
Perhaps it is too fast; there is not enough time for consolidation, for “sober second thought”. We are becoming capable of controlling genetic evolution itself, perhaps to our detriment; we need to slow down and think. Even throughout human history and pre-history, there has been a marked acceleration of change (to agricultural to industrial to technological evolution), not all of it always beneficial, sometimes harmful to the environment, our “prime real estate”. (Even agriculture has drawbacks compared to hunting and gathering culture, although it allowed a great expansion of human population, again possibly too great.)
We now question the fragility of some of our new technology, for example interconnected computer systems. What would happen if the Internet should crash? This could happen through hostile or terrorist action (maybe through an electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion), or through the playful activity of hackers, or simply through information overload. Too much of our economy now depends on the Internet – quite suddenly, in evolutionary terms. Could we start again from scratch? Probably (we have not yet lost all our “primitive” skills, like manual calculation and recordkeeping) but it would be a huge setback. In the future, when we may be “dumbed down” ‘enough to have lost the original skills, it could be much worse. We should always keep up those skills as a fall-back position.
Also, social-cultural evolution lags behind technological evolution, and our moral-ethical evolution is even more retarded. If human society is to spontaneously selforganize as life on earth once did, and as general chemical systems can sometimes do, these lags must be repaired. This may involve slowing down the technology so that we can catch up. A sober thought: perhaps any advanced technological civilizations that may have once existed elsewhere in the Universe have already self-destructed, which is why we have not been able to contact any.
If we should be able to avoid self-destruction and achieve self-organization of human society on Earth, what would the ideal new world order look like? Ahead of that achievement, we can only speculate. We need human unity, which does not yet exist in our fractured world. We need unity with nature, to safeguard our environment. But along with unity, we need diversity, not homogenization; diversity of species, of cultures, of languages, of genetic make-up.
As the human embryo grows, its cells differentiate to perform many local functions; but the whole developing organism remains integrated through constant exchange of information and mutual cooperation. This is a good model for a future peaceful, just and cooperative worldwide human society. We are at the embryo stage; may we bring it to full term, and not abort it.
The classical political model which preserves both unity and diversity is a federation, or more specifically subsidiarity. (A federation usually has two levels of government; subsidiarity can have more than two.) We need to pay attention to both local and global levels of organization and problem-solving, and several levels in between. The optimum number of levels from person to planet would be about 8: individual, neighbourhood, town, local region, province, nation, continent, world. Problems should be solved at the lowest level possible, to be more democratic, but such that there are few outside effects. (Since in a system everything is connected to everything, the determination of “few external effects” will always be difficult, but compromises can be made, as our experience in Canada has shown.) Each unit in a subsidiarity order can self-organize according to its own culture, but the levels must also create and maintain overall integration and cooperation.
Evolution proceeds through crisis stages, when fluctuations accumulate and make the structure unstable; it can then flip either to a more stable (usually more complex) configuration or collapse – go to breakthrough or breakdown.
We do live in a crisis, in “interesting times”, according to an old Chinese curse. But the Chinese symbol for crisis also reminds us that a crisis is both a danger and an opportunity.
May we find the ratchet that will prevent us from sliding down into breakdown. We may yet succeed in climbing the peak of fitness in our rugged and changing landscape.