Darwin’s great idea was that human beings were naturally selected by evolution over millions of years, rather than built as we are now from the beginning. This evolution was based on three features of life:
1. Generation. Species generate offspring that carry on their traits.
2. Variation. The traits of offspring vary, for example by mutation.
3. Selection. Offspring that survive are selected to continue the lineage.
Evolution is then an iterative process that explores biological patterns to select those that survive, not a manufacturing process that builds a product based on a blueprint. It was initially applied only to biological systems but it is now thought that any active system that chooses from variable results can evolve, including social, geophysical, and technical systems (Bejan, 2023), so it is a universal principle distinct from the second law of thermodynamics.
It is now proposed that quantum systems have the features necessary to evolve. For example, when a photon of light finds the best path to any destination, it evolves by Darwinian principles because there is:
1. Generation. The photon wave actively generates offspring by instantiation.
2. Variation. Photon instances vary in properties like location and direction.
3. Selection. A physical event selects one instance to restart the photon lineage.
Hence, a photon cloud passing through both Young’s slits to hit a screen point is also an evolution, as one of many generated variants triggers a restart that selects how the photon is reborn. In this case, the outcome seems accidental, but some instance always finds the best path. Likewise in Darwinian evolution, species seem to survive by accident, but that some will survive isn’t an accident, as life always finds a way, if there is one.
Light then evolved matter as follows. By the law of all action, the extreme light produced by the big bang tried every combination to eventually produce electrons, a new entity species that isn’t light. The electron was then selected by its stability, as it is constantly bombarded by competitors for its physical niche, just as a new species faces competition in a biological niche. Stability then drives the evolution of matter as survival drives the evolution of species. In both cases, the future comes from what carries on, not what doesn’t.
Randomness was necessary for matter to evolve but it is pointless in a clockwork universe, as it introduces errors in the machine. What use is a clock that gives random times? Randomness is equally unhelpful in a designed universe, because it interferes with the divine plan. Einstein’s statement, that God doesn’t play dice with the universe, is that a supreme power, whether divine or scientific, doesn’t give up control, but what if it chose to? It is not then God that plays dice with the universe but its participants, by their choices. That matter evolved then needn’t deny theology or science, as for the first, evolution is the design, and for the second, matter is an effect not a cause. Both views are revolutionary, but that doesn’t make them wrong.
Evolution is based on practice not theory, on results not rules, so matter is just finding what survives as life is. And it allows no shortcuts, as each step must give the next, with no missing links, so matter had to evolve from the first light, and stars had to die to create atoms like carbon that life needs. If the same features, of generation, variation, and selection, explain matter and life, then behind the evolution of life lies a grander evolution, that of matter.
If the earth is a freakish accident, we may be alone in the universe, but if it is a natural evolution, that is unlikely. Even if life is so far limited to our earth, the grand evolution that allowed it is ongoing, as stars still evolve matter to this day. The foundation for life was laid long ago, so in a big universe it will occur, because it can, as our earth shows. And life can produce conscious beings, as humanity illustrates, so eventually the same will occur elsewhere, if it hasn’t already.