Towards a General Theory of Selection.

By A.S.N. Misra B.A. (Hons) M.A. (Oxon).

© 2009. (All rights reserved).

Contact; mnmhnmisra@aol.com
1. Introducing Cultural Selection. ..............................................................................................2
2. Punctuated Equilibrium and Thermodynamics. .....................................................................4
3. A General Theory of Cultural Evolution................................................................................7
4. Cultural Equilibrium. .............................................................................................................9
5. The Fundamental Unit of Cultural Selection. ......................................................................10
6. The Principle of Entropy Maximization...............................................................................11
7. Thermal Equilibrium. ...........................................................................................................12
8. How Shannon’s Equation Objectively Contradicts the Gaia Hypothesis. ...........................14
9. The Birth of Macro-Biology. ...............................................................................................16
10. Evolution of the Arts. .........................................................................................................17
11. A Note on Natural Liberty and Ethics................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
1. Introducing Cultural Selection.

The theory of evolution has led to the expression of a principle (sometimes called Gall’s law)
which states that complex forms or structures always evolve or develop out of earlier, simpler
forms.1 Natural selection and the associated Neo-Darwinian synthesis explicates how this principle
is enacted in the natural world; but should there not be an equivalent theory which scientifically
explains the similar emergence of complex forms and structures in the cultural world? Do these
not also, in some sense, evolve?
Thomas Kuhn seemed to think so;

“The process described in section 12 as the resolution of revolutions is the selection by

conflict within the scientific community of the fittest way to practice future science. The net
result of a sequence of such revolutionary selections, separated by periods of normal research,
is the wonderfully adapted set of instruments we call scientific knowledge. Successive stages
in that developmental process are marked by an increase in articulation and specialization.
And the entire process may have occurred, as we now suppose biological evolution did,
without benefit of a set goal, a permanent, fixed scientific truth, of which each stage in the
development of scientific knowledge is a better exemplar. [My italics.]”2

Karl Popper, perhaps inspired by the above passage, gives a still more explicit account of the
same process of selection and suggests that it might be generalized to give us a complete empirical
theory of knowledge;

“All this might be expressed by saying that the growth of our knowledge is the result of a
process closely resembling what Darwin called Natural Selection; that is the natural selection
of hypotheses: our knowledge consists at every moment of those hypotheses which have
shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving so far in their struggle for existence; a
competitive struggle which eliminates those hypotheses that are unfit… this statement of the
situation is meant to describe how knowledge really grows. It is not meant metaphorically,
though of course it makes use of metaphor. The theory of knowledge which I propose is a
largely Darwinian theory of the growth of knowledge. From the amoeba to Einstein the
growth of knowledge is always the same; we try to solve our problems and to obtain, by a
process of elimination, something approaching adequacy to our tentative solutions.[His
italics]”3

And more recently Henry Plotkin has observed;

“If the primary heuristic {biological evolution} works by selectional processes, which it most
certainly does; if, as will be argued in the next chapter, culture works by selectional processes,
which is fairly widely agreed to be the case; and if that other embodiment of the secondary
heuristic that deals with our uncertain chemical futures, namely the immune system, works by

1
Gall, John, Systemantics. 1978. Pocket.
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.” P71.
2
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Thomas Kuhn. 1962. University of Chicago Press. P171.
3
Popper, Karl, Objective Knowledge. P261. 1972. Routledge.
 selectional processes, which is now universally agreed: then why should one be so perverse as
to back a different horse when it comes to intelligence?”4

Certainly the general process of Selection with human judgment rather than the natural
environment as the principle agent or locus of selection, is, it will be found, sufficient to explain –
at least as a special case of natural selection – the development of all elements of human cultural
production whatsoever (not just scientific knowledge, as Kuhn argues and not just human
knowledge, as Popper argues).

The key concept in the evolution of all cultural traditions, institutions, ideas and technologies (as
well as modes of behaviour) is the concept of Selection by means of trial and error. Both Kuhn
and Popper fail to develop their ideas beyond these brief statements whereas the one general
treatment of cultural evolution (Dawkin’s The Extended Phenotype) suffers from various faults
including a tendency to metaphysical reification.
These failures are regrettable since the theory of knowledge implied by the empirical concept of
Selection is of the utmost importance when it comes to fulfilling the ambition of placing the whole
of the social sciences – and axiological philosophy - on a fully empirical and unified foundation. It
would, (albeit only in general terms), represent the completion of the project of the sciences and of
logical empiricism – such that nothing would anymore lie outside its unified purview. Thus it is an
important idea for us to pursue – albeit only imperfectly in my case.
As stated before the stress in such a theory must fall on the idea of a selecting agent, in this case
privileging the analysis of human behaviour over that of environmental pressures, but only whilst
always implicitly recognizing the former as a special case of the latter.
Human behaviour is, after all, dependent upon a combination of inherited genetic causal factors
and a variety of environmental pressures. This is true and widely accepted as a general description
but the distinction is only a relative one. This is because genes themselves are, from their earliest
origins, products of environmental pressures. They may be said to have been caused by complex
thermodynamic flows. Thus the genetic theory of causation (viz human behaviour) can only be
said to exist as a special case of the theory of environmental causation.

4
Plotkin, Henry C. Darwin machines and the nature of knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(1994). P172.
Heinz Pagels has also made a similar observation to these;
“ Perhaps our thinking exemplifies a selective system. First lots of random scattered ideas compete for survival. Then
comes the selection for what works best--one idea dominates, and this is followed by its amplification. Perhaps the
moral . . . is that you never learn anything unless you are willing to take a risk and tolerate a little randomness in your
life.”
Pagels, Heinz. The dreams of reason New York: Simon & Schuster (1988).
2. Punctuated Equilibrium and Thermodynamics.

As is the case in the theory of natural selection the central ordering phenomenon at the heart of
cultural selection is that of equilibrium.5 This relates all biological and cultural activity alike to the
central ordering principles of Thermodynamics – thus explaining why analysis of the process of
selection may ultimately explain phenomena in both disciplines. What this means in practice is
that breaks in the status quo – i.e. breaks in equilibrium - of a given natural or cultural
environment are likely to generate bursts of activity – in essence bursts of selection – which lead
to the extinction of old forms and the emergence of new or better adapted forms.6 These forms will
then remain dominant until the next major disturbance in environmental equilibrium.
This approach to the analysis of natural selection in the light of Thermodynamics is a special
development in evolutionary theory – still resisted somewhat by the dominant Neo-Darwinian
Synthesis – called the theory of Punctuated Equilibria. It was driven by distinctive evidence (of
long periods of evolutionary stasis) which emerged from the specialization known as
Paleobiology.7 As Darwin himself states in a later edition of the Origin of Species;

“Many species, once formed, never undergo any further change; … and the periods during
which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably
been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form.”8

As such the tendency has been for the proponents of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis to accept the
analysis of Punctuated Equilibria Theory whilst at the same time trivializing its significance.9 The
reason why this attitude is demonstrably wrong is because Punctuated Equilibria theory, besides
accurately describing the actual phenomena in a more precise and useful way (which one might
consider trivial perhaps) also indicates in a precise way – albeit only incidentally - the correct
relationship between the theory of evolution and the underlying or still more general theory of
Thermodynamics, of which the theory of evolution is but a special case. This, though perhaps
unintended by Gould and Eldredge, is a non-trivial outcome since it serves to reduce isolation
between the sciences.
Thus if we accept that the theory of cultural selection is a special case of the theory of natural
selection then we may also accept that the theory of natural selection is, in turn, simply a special
case of the general theory of thermodynamics– particularly as expressed in the two laws and in the

5
Which is why analysis of the conditions for maintaining and breaking equilibrium are at the heart of all scientific
disciplines – including the social sciences.
6
A process of Creative-Destruction.
7
Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, 1972. Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism In T.J.M.
Schopf, ed., Models in Paleobiology. San Francisco: Freeman Cooper. pp. 82-115. Reprinted in N. Eldredge Time
frames. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. 1985
8
Charles Darwin, 1869. On the origin of species by means of natural selection. London: John
Murray. 5th edition, p. 551.
9
Richard Dawkins, 1996. The blind watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton, p. 227.ff
The point is if we ignore some of Gould and Eldredge’s other ideas and combative stance there is – as Darwin’s own
words quoted above indicate – no reason why the central hypothesis of punctuated-equilibria – cannot be more
formally ordained as a canonical element of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis. Indeed, Dawkins has implied that it always
was a part of this synthesis.
instantiation of the principle of equilibrium. 10 Ultimately all theories in the social sciences exist in
relation to and as articulations of aspects of this principle of equilibrium.

10
Thermodynamics is, in its turn, simply a special or limiting case of the non-classical or statistical theory of quantum
mechanics (see my work Logic and Physics – currently available at scribd.com). Thus ends the chain of reduction in
the natural and human sciences – and thus also begins the analysis of logical foundations (Ibid).
3. A General Theory of Cultural Evolution.

External events or new discoveries cause a break in the status-quo or equilibrium of a given
culture or tradition thereby engendering rapid evolution in that field, which, as Kuhn suggests,
appears revolutionary but is in reality explicable through a generalization of the Darwinian
mechanism of selection. A “revolution” is thus simply a pulse in evolutionary selection, with stasis
as the norm.
As Gould and Eldredge point out simpler species are less susceptible to even sometimes dramatic
changes in their environment and so are capable of remaining in stasis for hundreds of millions of
years in the case, for example, of certain marine genera like the coelacanth and the horse-shoe
crab. In the case of single celled organisms from before the pre-Cambrian explosion (which gave
rise to multi-cellular organisms of all major phyla some 600 million years ago) stasis may even
obtain for billions of years. Thus stasis or equilibrium is overwhelmingly the norm and phyletic
gradualism (evolution as described by Darwin) is very much the exceptional or special case.
The stasis of single-celled life forms was first broken in the late Proterozoic era roughly 700
million years ago by the emergence of Multi-cellular organisms (composed of colonies of single-
celled life11). As more complex species have evolved periods of intervening stasis have become
progressively briefer (particularly for more exposed land species) such that the development of
some species (including hominids) has progressed towards an extreme case of almost continuous
evolutionary turnover which Darwin, who primarily concerned himself with such types,
mistakenly took to be the norm. These rare instances of continuous cycles of allopatric adaptation
and speciation (as described by population genetics) are however a limiting or special case of a
more general theory described by punctuated equilibrium.

Similarly in the field of cultural analysis we also find that stasis is the norm and for much the
same reasons. Isolated cultures commonly evolve rapidly in a cultural equivalent of the
mechanism of speciation as described by population genetics and then retain relative stasis in their
new environment for substantial but indeterminate periods of time until new pressures emerge –
for example, the end of the period of isolation.12
Equally, pulses of cultural evolution caused by changed environmental equilibria may coincide
with decline or mass-extinction of other cultures. Thus often in history empires will emerge (or
just new ideas and technologies) and push aside the old order, often replacing it, in effect making
it entirely extinct. This is a process we have encountered elsewhere as creative-destruction.13
One may pursue the implications of this idea (of cultural selection and punctuated equilibria)
through the annals of history and cultural innovation (as I once foolishly attempted) but one will
simply find its applicability to be universal in describing all forms of cultural life in all eras. It is,

11
Note also the evolution of the eukaryotic (or complex) cell at a still earlier phase in this process (endo-symbiosis).
Knoll, Andrew H.; Javaux, E.J, Hewitt, D. and Cohen, P. (2006). Eukaryotic organisms in Proterozoic oceans.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Part B 361 (1470): 1023–38.
In altering the composition of the environment over billions of years (making it oxygen rich) photosynthetic cells
(prokaryotes) paved the way for the diversification of multi-cellular organisms and hence to modern biodiversity. This
was perhaps the first and greatest example of life fundamentally altering the biosphere.
12
The same is also true for the evolution of languages, which also follow an allopatric model.
13
See my work Logical Foundations of a Self Organizing Economy. Part two. 2009. (Currently available at
scribd.com)
in a sense, a uniquely invariant empirical theory of culture. As such this pursuit is really the proper
subject of a full-scale academic research project and so cannot be conducted here. One thing is
certain however is that this idea is the correct empirical alternative to the chronically metaphysical
study of the philosophy of history as it has been instantiated from Hegel and Marx through to
Fukuyama and others.14

14
See for instance Fukuyama for a recent example of this tradition. Fukuyama, F The End of History and the Last
Man. 1992. Free press.
4. Cultural Equilibrium.

A major pulse in cultural evolution was caused by the recession of the Wurm glaciation some
10,000 years ago which helped to trigger conditions allowing for the development of agriculture
and urban civilization. Thereafter cultural evolution has moved according to the extended model
suggested by punctuated equilibria with many cultures experiencing long periods of relative stasis
or even decline between often brief periods of intense cultural development and transformation.15
However in the case of what might loosely be called the mainstream of cultural evolution since
the Wurm glaciation periods of stasis have become progressively briefer culminating (as on the
analogy of natural evolution described in the last section) in a phase of accelerating continuous
development and innovation since the time of the Renaissance.
Just as continuous turnover, becomes the norm in natural evolution (effectively marginalizing
stasis), so too the same can be said about cultural evolution, notably driven by the endogenous
powers of self-regeneration possessed by Liberal societies as discussed in Part 2 of my work
Logical Foundations of a Self Organizing Economy (op cit.).
Equilibrium in such a case stems only from the maximization of scientific and technical
knowledge – after which must come a fall off in cultural innovation and a concomitant return to
equilibrium. This stage has obviously not arisen yet in today’s globalized culture, but could
presumably do so at any time.
As discussed in Part 2 of Logical Foundations of a Self Organizing Economy Liberalism is the
best apriori means of controlling and channeling the inevitable rise in social disorder – i.e. entropy
– as history progresses towards the global equilibrial society which is the cultural equivalent of
thermal equilibrium.

15
This is not to say that cultural evolution on the extended punctuated equilibria model did not exist before this
period, as it most certainly always has done. Witness especially the astonishing cultural transformation associated with
the Aurignacian and Magdalenian periods in Western Europe beginning three hundred centuries ago. This cultural
development (around four hundred centuries ago) was only brought to a halt, we might suppose, by the unfortunate
onset of the Wurm glaciation.
R. Dale Guthrie, The Nature of Paleolithic Art University Of Chicago Press, 2006.
5. The Fundamental Unit of Cultural Selection.

As the evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin first observed the fundamental unit of natural
selection is neither the individual nor the group (nor any higher order of taxon) but rather the gene
itself.16 This is because as evolution takes place soma bodies (individuals, species etc. – sometimes
referred to as the “vehicles” of the replicator) emerge into and disappear from existence whilst
only the replicator survives as a constant and usually increases in complexity. This is why the
Neo-Darwinian synthesis treats the gene as the fundamental unit upon which natural selection acts.
By a development of this argument it is appropriate to treat cultural forms – all of them – as
passing “vehicles” of the replicator as well, since none have a fundamental or abiding character.
Culture is thus interpretable simply an extension of the soma-body or genotype. It follows from
this analysis therefore that there can be no fundamental unit of cultural selection as hypothesized
by Richard Dawkins17. Culture is simply an extension of the soma-body, like a snail-shell.
There are thus no metaphysical and ill defined memes in cultural selection, only rising and
decaying cultural forms of a more or less objective character. The concept of the meme is a
metaphysical construct18 or hypostatization based on the misconception that culture must have an
independent unit of selection. In reality the unit of cultural selection is the same as the unit of
natural selection – it is the gene.

16
Lewontin, R. C. (1970). The Units of Selection. Annual Reviews of Ecology and Systematics 1: 1–18.
17
Dawkins, R. The Extended Phenotype. 1982. Oxford University Press.
18
Metaphysics per-se never belongs in science. As I have laboriously demonstrated (Logic and Physics 2009.
scribd.com) the true sphere or limit of metaphysics – as a scientifically valid phenomenon – is logic and mathematics
and nothing else. The rest of so called metaphysics (see much of the history of philosophy) is simply a failure of
focus.
6. The Principle of Entropy Maximization.

D.N.A. – out of which the gene is composed – is simply a highly ordered form of information.
Although in quaternary form D.N.A. is constructed out of a species of digital code which is
therefore fully translatable into binary or computer code (hence the human genome project).
Information theory, as developed by Claude Shannon19 has succeeded in precisely linking
information, such as D.N.A. to entropy using an adaptation of Boltzmann’s geometrical
interpretation of entropy. The resulting law of information theory tells us that changes in
information (DI) are proportional to changes in entropy (DS) where k is Boltzmann’s constant;

∂S
∂I =
k

In other-words increases in information are exactly proportional to increases in entropy.

This implies of course that as life evolves entropy must increase in lockstep. This entropy
necessarily expresses itself as increasing environmental destabilization and disequilibrium which
in turn engenders new waves of evolutionary adaptation. In its extreme form this feedback loop
culminates in the limiting case of continuous allopatric adaptation and speciation first observed by
Darwin.
Cultural evolution simply takes this process to the next level as it too develops in an accelerating
fashion for the same underlying reason. This leads us to the following general conclusion; life on
earth maximizes entropy – thereby generating a negative feed-back loop with the environment
which, since it has a transcendental character, cannot be reversed. This maximization tendency is
expressed through the process of natural and cultural evolution. Mankind at the present time
merely stands at the apex of this transcendental process.

19
C.E. Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 27, pp. 379-423,
623-656, July, October, 1948.
7. Thermal Equilibrium.

As the replicator increases in complexity its code may be measured in terms of the growing
number of possible microstates which it may inhabit – in line with Boltzmann’s equation
(S = k.LOGe.W). As this figure increases so entropy in the surrounding environment must increase
proportionately – i.e. as a function of the growing complexity of the replicator or gene in a
dynamic feedback loop. In other words; as the complexity of the replicator increases so too does
entropy in the environment which in turn triggers greater (adaptive) complexity in the replicator.
This explains how life on earth has dramatically changed the environment (even the very
composition of gases in the atmosphere) many times prior to the arrival of man.
One might think that the entropy generated by cultural evolution would be harder to gauge due to
the absence of an independent unit of selection like the gene. But cultural evolution also expresses
itself as inherited information – in the form of human knowledge – which is therefore also, in
principle, expressible in the form of binary code and so subject to the Shannon version of
Boltzmann’s equation.
What is clear however is that this inherited form of information represents, indirectly, a massive
and accelerating increase in environmental entropy and hence disequilibrium of the sort that seems
to be manifesting itself – by common scientific consent – at the present time.
It is also apparent that entropy maximization cannot simply be equated with destructionism since
civilization – particularly modern civilization – is a far superior vehicle for entropy maximization
than mere barbarism, even of the worst kind, could ever be. This is because of the complex and
persistent character of civilization.
This in turn makes it hard to see how what is after all a transcendental process with its origins in
the very earliest life forms (indeed, in thermodynamic flows pre-dating life itself) can possibly be
arrested. To identify this process with man alone is simply naive as is the idea that, merely through
good will and human intelligence we can somehow alter its course. What this means in practice is
that improvements in environmental awareness and action (which are undoubtedly necessary) are
destined, in the long run, merely to improve our efficiency in the process of entropy maximization.
Negative feedback mechanisms from a changing environment may halt the process by making
mankind extinct but this seems unlikely since the process of accelerating entropy is primordial in
nature – it is not intrinsically unstable. 20

20
But consider the Doomsday argument made by Brandon Carter – a purely statistical prediction of the imminent
demise of the human species. Firstly it predicts with 95% percent confidence that we are not among the first 5% of
humans ever to have existed and with 90% confidence that we are not among the first 10% of humans ever to have
existed – and so on. Secondly it assumes that, given the exponential rate of expansion of human populations that the
time taken to complete the last 50% of people who will ever exist will be exponentially faster than the time taken to
complete the first 50% of people who will ever exist. In essence it is an argument based on a combination of Bayesian
statistical analysis and the mathematical phenomenon of exponential growth.
Using these two methods of analysis statisticians have come up with the conclusion that – assuming current population
growth rates and assuming an estimate of around 60 billion as the number of humans ever to have existed hitherto -
that there is a greater than 50% chance that the last human birth will occur prior to the 23rd century.
Carter, B. (1983). The anthropic principle and its implications for biological evolution. Philosophical transactions of the Royal
Society of London. A310: 347–363.
Although the figures surrounding this argument are indeterminate the mathematical logic is not open to dispute. What
is disputable is that the human species will maintain an exponentially expanding population to the end of time – which
contradicts what we know from biology about population mechanics.
Assuming instead that humanity in decline has a “long tail” then two things follow; firstly, the timeline for the demise
of the species will be greatly extended. Secondly, classic conditions of small, isolated populations will exist allowing
for the mechanisms of allopatric speciation to operate.
 Thus it is probable that we shall adapt more rapidly than our changing environment – thereby
allowing the intrinsic process of entropy maximization (culminating in thermal equilibrium) to
continue with greatest efficiency. Presumably the ultimate telos of this process – long after man
has passed away – is for our atmosphere to evolve into a close analogue of those on Mars and
Venus, both of which are currently in a happy state of thermal equilibrium.
8. How Shannon’s Equation Objectively Contradicts the Gaia Hypothesis.

As we saw in sections 6 and 7 the application of Shannon’s equation of information theory

demonstrates inescapably that the evolving complexity of the replicator and hence of life on earth
is exactly proportional to increasing entropy in the surrounding environment. This conclusion is
mathematically inescapable and as we also saw is entirely translatable to the study of the effects of
cultural evolution on the environment as well.
This tells us, in effect, that equilibrium in any system – including ecosystems and the biosphere
itself – must breakdown over time except where entropy reaches a maximum (i.e. at thermal
equilibrium). In essence therefore life on earth exerts a constant and growing pressure on any and
all equilibria that may happen (as they must) to spontaneously form in the natural environment.
This is due to the phenomenon of competition for scarce resources which incorporates strategies
of cooperation only as a special or limiting case.
Eventually this pressure may reach a tipping point triggering disequilibrium and the spontaneous
formation of less stable and hospitable conditions – in effect a phase-transition. This break in
stasis is thus likely to coincide with rapid evolutionary pulses in some species and mass-extinction
in others as elements of the eco-system struggle to adjust to the new situation and as a new less
hospitable and less stable equilibrium (or homeostasis) is discovered. As we discussed previously
this process of change to ever less stable and hospitable equilibria is only likely to accelerate over
time at least until full thermal equilibrium is reached – like a clock winding down.
And, indeed, this picture presented to us by the application of the second law of thermodynamics
accords with the history of evolution of life on earth which began in sub-glacial slowness and has
(on average) only accelerated in pace and bewildering complexity down to the present time –
transforming the biosphere (always in the direction of greater instability) along the way.
The problem with the Gaia hypothesis (even giving it its most generous definition21) is that it
tends to exaggerate the phenomenon of equilibrium (which it calls homeostasis) but
underestimates or else totally misses the rest of the picture as sketched above – i.e. the intrinsic
instability of homeostasis. This in turn leads to a rosy description of supposed “self-regulating” or
stabilizing processes whereas the reality is indisputably that of continuous adjustments (by
species) to ever changing equilibria. It also leads to the patriarchal and moralistic need to naively
depict mankind as some kind of unique stage villain in this whole primordial process to which he
is in reality only a relatively innocent late comer.22 And (sin of sins) it leads to the confusion of
biodiversity with homeostasis instead of with entropy – which Shannon’s equation proves to be
false.

21
For example consider Lynn Margulis’ bland identification of Gaia with the biosphere:
Margulis, Lynn (1998). Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
If this were all that Gaia theory consisted of then there could be no controversy. Equally the existence of phenomena
of interdependence and equilibria are not controversial since they require no more than natural selection and
thermodynamics to explain them. Only where Gaia departs from reality into suggesting the existence of self-regulating
eco-systems does it depart also from orthodoxy.
The biosphere is best understood as a single thermodynamic system (composed of many interactive sub-systems) in
unstable and decaying equilibrium. According to Lynn Margulis this is what Gaia must therefore be! What an about
face for a theory!
But see also Lovelock for the original definition some thirty years previously and which clearly demonstrates the
anthropomorphic character of the theory.
Lovelock, James (2000) [1979]. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (3rd ed. ed.). Oxford University Press.
22
Lovelock, James. The Revenge of Gaia. 2007. Basic Books.
 Gaians might riposte that phenomena of homeostasis (i.e. equilibrium) need accounting for. But
this is a fundamentally flawed assumption since we know that environments are inherently more
stable in the absence of life. It is the presence of life on earth which, as my application of
Shannon’s equation proves and which the history of evolution examples, rushes the planet into
ever less stable equilibria. It helps to hasten the progress of the planet towards the same fate
already shared by Mars and Venus – complete thermal equilibrium.
9. The Birth of Macro-Biology.

Given our analysis of Biospheric scale fluctuations in the preceding section and given our new
definition of the Biosphere as a single thermodynamic system (composed of many interactive sub-
systems) in unstable and decaying equilibrium and also our analysis of the application of
Shannon’s equation and the theory of Punctuated Equilibria over large time scales it may occur to
us that we have perhaps the correct conceptual foundations for the birth of a new discipline of
macro-biology, for which the hopelessly anthropomorphic Gaia hypothesis was but a proto-typical
approximation. But again, as is the case with the outlines of the theory of cultural selection
described earlier it is for others, more expert in the field, to pursue the myriad details.
10. Evolution of the Arts.

It has often occurred to me that the distinction between form and content in the arts is, though
eminently practical, also somewhat misleading. It seems to posit a distinction which, in other
contexts, does not have an absolute character. To take a simple example, the content of a painting
is itself a type of form or collection of forms. Even in literature, where the distinction is most
solid, one might imagine the content of literature to be animated as form. Indeed, in the case of
drama, this is exactly what does happen – the content is transformed into form. Finally, in music,
sometimes considered the purest of the arts the distinction between form and content all but
collapses and the content becomes the form.
This state of affairs is little commented upon in Western aesthetics and yet it lies very much at the
heart of Eastern aesthetics and notably Buddhist aesthetics. Perhaps its finest expression is given
in the Heart Sutra;

“Form is empty. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form;

form is also not other than emptiness…
“Shariputra, likewise, all phenomena are emptiness; without characteristic;
unproduced, unceased; stainless, not without stain; not deficient,
not fulfilled.
“Shariputra, therefore, in emptiness there is no form…”23

Here the observation concerning the unity of form and content is taken a step further to suggest the
perception of nihilism or indeterminacy which characterize Buddhist philosophy24.
However for our purposes it is sufficient to make the point that a fundamental unity between
aesthetic form and content (form-content) exists which perhaps parallels (by way of analogy) the
famous space-time unity posited by Einstein in the General theory of Relativity.

This form-content unity, if it be allowed by the reader, allows us to posit the following hypothesis;
which is that all the arts may, at some level, be interpreted as expressions of geometrical form,
albeit indeterminately and may therefore have Boltzmann’s geometrical interpretation of entropy
applied to their collective evolution.
And if this is so then it follows that the development of artistic traditions (by processes of cultural
selection25) from simple origins to higher levels of complexity (or diversity) and specialization
represents, ipso-facto, the evolution of geometrical entropy in these systems. Furthermore this

23
Heart of Prajnaparamita Sutra. George Churinoff (trans). Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana
Tradition, 2001.
24
These philosophers seemed to have grasped that perfection – i.e. equilibrium without entropy - is aphenomenal.
25
The canon is, after all, selected, even if only by default. Even individual works of art may be considered the
products of a large number of selection processes of various kinds, (often occurring almost instantaneously in the
creator’s brain), leading to the relative equilibrium of the finished product.
The correct understanding of collective and individual psychology is in terms of adaptations leading to equilibria with
changing circumstances. Culture, science, the arts, even dreaming are all examples of adjustments leading to new
equilibria. But in the process entropy is generated. This is the fundamental thesis of this work.
hypothesis suggests the evolution of the dominant world traditions of the high arts towards
cessation or silence – the equivalent of thermal equilibrium. And this, in the form of Minimalism,
is what we have perhaps already seen in these traditions.
11. A Note on Natural Liberty and Ethics.

One perceptive philosopher, I forget who, once spoke of “freedom… without meaning, without
purpose” as though it were the duty of society to supply us with existential fulfillment as well as
everything else. But the point about meaning and purpose is their purely relative character,
meaning that one discovers these things for oneself in ones private or public endeavours – this is
why we value freedom. After all what is the alternative that brings with it meaning and purpose?
Slavery perhaps?
Kant famously suggested that we should fill the void cruelly opened up by natural liberty with self
slavery (i.e. the categorical imperative26). Others have commended a broad range, even a spectrum
of alternatives, from self-enslavement through to extreme hedonism.27 But the point is that ethical
alternatives have a relativistic character whereas natural liberty, which does not determine between
them, has an apriori character.28 Natural Liberty is the field in which human choice is enacted and
so is a good in itself, transcending the specific choices that might be made – or the ethical systems
that might determine such choices.

A more calculating person than my self might choose to interpret the study of the whole field of
ethical choice simply as a subdivision of game theory. Any particular ethical system would then be
interpreted as a strategy (a life strategy) with certain rules and possible costs and benefits – some
of which might be said to exist not from the point of view of the individual but from the deeper
perspective of the replicator itself.29 Again this approach (which could be called meta-ethics)
might be considered a special case of the analysis of the much broader range of strategies used by
species in the natural world. The implications of this are, again, that cultural selection (in this case
in the discipline of ethics) is a special case of natural selection.

April 2009

26
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Kant, Immanuel; translated by James W. Ellington [1785] (1993). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed..
Hackett. pp. 30.
27
I myself prefer to cultivate Pyrrhonism and also the spirit of Zen, but I am far from strict about these things. For me
they are perhaps just an extension of hedonistic indulgence – a special case of hedonism if you like. Perhaps all such
choices in the direction of austerity are.
28
See my work Logical Foundations of a Self-Organizing Economy. (2009) scribd.com – for a fuller analysis of the
concept of natural liberty.
29
See Hamilton’s Rule in regard to explaining the genetic causes underlying altruism on the one hand and selfish or
spiteful behaviour on the other;
Hamilton W.D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour I and II. — Journal of Theoretical Biology 7: 1-16
and 17-52
This analysis might be extended to account for the full spectrum of ethics as well – thereby handing over yet another
limb of classical philosophy to the domain of logical empiricism.