Evolving Complexity

The natural world has such beauty, it has complexities and so many interdependencies with untold refinements which could only come about via trillions of small gradual adjustments over millions of years. If you pressed fast forward on the button: embryo to baby, it would bust apart rather than build a life in a few days.

Other planets harbouring life would not be dissimilar to what we have here. Life forms would utilise carbon and water in comparable ways, no matter where it spawns. I say that as many have pointed out that an eye is a lens at heart. An eye will always be like the eyes we see here as light bends and focuses with lenses. Some things work well, others don’t. Only things that work well linger.

The electronics revolution started with the humble battery. With the means to produce electricity people then sought to turn the flow on and off with valves then transistors. Complex computers soon followed. The first part of the journey, building a pile of metals soaked in acid/brine was slow compared with the latter. The early stages of animal evolution were slow too.

With lots of simple switches joined in unison, working in harmony we get a powerful computer. The possibilities increase tremendously with a small increase in the number of switches. With an upstairs light and a downstairs one, you have four possible states. Both on. Both off. One off one on. One on one off. With three lightbulbs, you have eight possibilities. Each extra switch doubles the permutations. From two states with one switch to over a million with twenty. To generate graphics and sound, to process information, computers utilise a vast number of basic on/off switches. They accomplish amazing tasks yet are built on basic building blocks. Lots of them.

Whether it is a computer or animal species, the building blocks need to be in place and working reliably first. Evolution creates ever larger ever more complex structures using those basic building blocks. Once the know how has been established it takes hold and spreads rapidly. An organism that operates reliably with a viable successful arrangement propagates quickly and relentlessly. Drop a few algae organisms into a pond and within a few days the whole surface is covered. Progress is only quick once something devised works. Each stage of enhancement takes a long time, testing all the possibilities.