Evolutionary Innovation Viewed as Novel Physical Phenomena
and Hierarchical Systems Building
Tim Taylor
Independent Researcher
Department of Data Science and AI, Monash University
tim@tim-taylor.com
In previous work I proposed a framework for thinking about open-ended evolution (Taylor, 2019). The framework characterised the basic processes required for Darwinian evolution as: (1) the generation of a phenotype from a genetic description; (2) the evaluation of that phenotype; and (3) the reproduction with variation of successful genotypephenotypes. My treatment emphasized the potential influence of the biotic and abiotic environment, and of the laws of physics/chemistry, on each of these processes. I demonstrated the conditions under which these processes can allow for ongoing exploration of a space of possible phenotypes (which I labelled exploratory open-endedness). However, these processes by themselves cannot expand the space of possible phenotypes and therefore cannot account for the more interesting and unexpected kinds of evolutionary innovation (such as those I labelled expansive and transformational open-endedness).