Evolution as a material activity

Perception and action are an achievement of the animal environment interface. Perception is guiding action

(Carello & Turvey, nd) In chapter 3 I described how Swenson developed and combined a broader conception of evolution with an epistemic view that in contradistinction to an interpretation of the second law as a

statistical averaging of the tendency for randomness and disorder is considered reversible and defined functionally as leading to a state of disorder in the world. Following Prigogine Swenson argues that entropy is linked to the arrow of time always taking flowing by the fastest route for energy dissipation and by that selecting process is an order producing architecture. The importance of this is that spontaneous, or naturally occurring order is not infinitely improbable as stated by Boltzmann. Odum describes successful systems as those that maximise power through maximizing energy capture, whereas Swenson attributes their success and persistence to an ability to maximise entropy production. Both understand that order arises in the presence of energy flow in a way that is consistent with the energy laws with no reliance on external intervention of any kind.

I described the autocatalytic and autocatakinetic processes that Odum and Swenson reason must exist in self-sustaining systems. Swenson’s work considers the way that thermodynamic selection principles act in a physical way in living systems. The mechanism central to his argument is

autocatakinesis, the architecture of which points towards a unified theory of evolutionary ordering (Swenson, 1991). England (2013), an assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, continues Swenson’s line of argument saying that natural selection is a special case of

evolutionary process. He believes that there is an energy source constantly surrounding atoms that results in a natural organisation of what we observe as the physical characteristic of life. What drives this is the system’s ability to disperse great quantities of energy when driven by an outside source such as the sun and bathed in the right atmospheric or oceanic conditions (Wolchover, 2014). England recognizes the difficulty that statistical physics has with living systems because they are far from equilibrium and ‘therefore need not obey a simple Boltzmann probability over

microscopic arrangements’(England, 2013, p. 139). This means there is an unconstrained diversity making it difficult to home in on a general theory. His work in this field so far shows that the ‘microscopically detailed, quantifiable relationship between irreversibility and entropy production …has significant general consequences for entities for far from equilibrium macroscopic processes’ (2013, p139). England says of his research that ‘what we have glimpsed here is that the underlying connection between entropy production and transition probability has a much more general applicability, so long as we recognise that ‘self-replication’ is only visible once an observer decides how to classify the ‘self’ in the system’ (2013, p139). Transport and structure may well be entangled in what is meant by this self-other process and evidence of this requires a better understanding of the general relationship of heat, organisation persistence and that this is what the tools of

molecular biology apparatus are starting to illuminate.

The evidence of transport and communication processes found at a cellular level provide is starting to change the idea that evolutionary processes are reliant solely on a gene centric view central in neo Darwinian theory. The discovery of an information based genetic activity further informs Darwin’s thinking that led him to seek a mechanical inter-actionary explanation for evolution, reasoning that such actions could lead to, or cause adaptation in a population (Hoelzer et al., 2006). An ontology that commits to a natural order producing world of energy flows and entropy as a selective process, can expand our definition of goods transport to encompass more than just that of being an anthropomorphic tool of resource exploitation.

The production process creates new entities, and combinations of those entities create new entities with identifiable production processes includes new the appearance of novel transport entities. The molecules continue to function as molecules and undergo reactions in gradients generate form in matter. These are biological and chemical processes that offer insights that physics alone cannot offer about the way that new things can come into existence that exhibit new properties that are not found in their component parts. What can be said about this is that the reality of objective phenomena can be confirmed by a posteriori science through being observed with the instruments of science within the domain of molecular biology. This requires that the findings are verified across

a range of laboratories, by technicians using powerful microscopes to observe activity that exists independently of the human mind.

Wilson considers ‘luck’ and improbability as key elements of evolutionary development. He says “the reason is simply the extreme improbability of the pre adaptations necessary for it to occur at all” and later the remote coincidence “to have made every one of the required lucky turns in the evolutionary maze” (E. O. Wilson, 2012, p. 45 my italic) If Wilsons view is the right one then there is unlikely to be any consequential acceptance (or otherwise) of common factors with social evolution. Wilson’s reliance on chance and luck is consistent with still tightly held view that ‘exactly the right genetic changes’ led to ‘a stroke of luck’ that is humanity (E. O. Wilson, 2012, p. 50). His own work recognizes that genetic changes are around disease, local climate and food changes – important; but not passing Swenson’s test of ‘putting living things, including humans, back in the world and recognizing living things and their environments as single irreducible systems’ (Swenson, 1997a, p. 43) If we accept that humankind is ‘in the world’ and we are evolving as part of the same self- organizing processual system as everything else, then our understanding increases of what

ultimately successful energy flows through society will be like. He makes one reference to the speed of change when resources are abundant, but by and large views evolutionary processes as non- thermodynamic. In doing so he misses out on the centrality of Swenson’s perception – action account of development as when ‘whole system evolutionary changes designed to increase territorial reach and influence’ (Swenson, 1997a). The importance of this evolutionary view for goods transport is that it accounts for rich matter brought to centres of social existence. Structures that Wilson believes came into existence because ‘altruistic cooperation protects a persistent, defensible nest from enemies, whether predators, parasites, or competitors’, and that ‘members of groups belong to more than one generation and divide labour in a way that sacrifices at least some of their personal interests to that group’ (E. O. Wilson, 2012, pp. 140-141)

A focus on energy flow and material processes begs the question of whether Darwin’s now 300- year-old natural selection theory is a partial description as a special case of a larger and more inclusive evolutionary theory about the development of the living. If advances in micro science discover mechanical functionality that can be described adequately by macro structures such as logistics hubs, and topological communication systems, then the discovery of the existence of these advanced structures helps explain other primary evolutionary processes that take us from the first cell, to a diversity of living things that Darwinian selection can then act on to ensure the most robust combination of traits maximises life at that time.

Darwinism may owe its ongoing hegemony as the leading explanation of evolving progress to providing a view of the world that lends support to Victorian capitalist and global industrialisation forces that emphasize human ingenuity and innovative activity while treating material explanations, and associated transportation, as external to evolutionary process. Seen in this way a business focussed social structure negates the need for a meaningful explanation of the transport function. This view is supported by the literature as shown in Chapter two, where there are few theoretical suppositions about goods movement found in any discipline. Instead the focus is on an evolutionary theory, where the ascent of man relies on random gene mutation and increasing fecundity – the survival of the fittest. While Darwin’s natural selection mechanisms are becoming progressively better understood, debate remains over where Darwin’s competing populations first came from. Notwithstanding Darwin’s reliance on God as creator, his theory leaves questions on why life is like the way it is, unanswered. If transportation is found to be actively part of the formation of the last common ancestor, then identifying how fundamental transport’s role is in all thermodynamic systems may be the next big thing in understanding continuing evolutionary process and progress. What is found in ecological and cellular systems challenges the Boltzmann casting of entropy as leading to a progressive disorganisation of the physical world. What would a non-Boltzmann based theory of transport have to account for? It would have to account for why extension happens in specific ways in different living things, and why once a certain capability is reached complexification stops. Once a new structure is in place then any changes are relatively minor adaptations. Those adaptations would need to be consistent with the overall structure creating mechanism, maintain change within that overall structure, and allow extinction when the overall structure is no longer able to interact with the energy flow in the environment. To create a more robust and scientific basis for the defence of self-building systems requires the centrality of a mechanism that somehow self builds, without human intervention, and builds structure of a certain type and includes

transportation systems. It is a field of study excluded from the neo-Darwinian natural selection explanation of evolution but the resolution of which may be central to understanding transport systems. An understanding of how potential is dissipated adds credence to a lawful selection process and wider understanding of evolution. The barriers are high. Hoelezer finds a reticence among evolutionary biologist to entertain cross disciplinary or any non-Darwinian theory. This is seriously limiting to developing transport theory as transport is a cross disciplinary mechanism that expands evolutionary thinking beyond natural selection as an explanation that encompassing a whole systems perspective (Hoelzer et al., 2006). Research in a number of disciplines identifies that life exists far from equilibrium when understood as sustained by energy flow through the system (Chaisson, 2005). While molecular biological research is answering questions about what happens

when transport systems fail in cells, there is also opportunity to consider the transport aspect of microbiological research to identify how to design and govern transport processes within healthy social groupings.

Transport theory becomes interesting in a world where systems are seen as striving to maximise entropy and select the most efficient pathways to do so. The industrial revolution depends on such a striving mechanism in the development of steam power through finding a faster way to degrade energy by harnessing it as locomotive power. In this chapter I have shown how transport as an active participant in the evolution of the world and so widen the scope of possible evolutionary mechanism to account for the universality of the transportation function.

Odum theorises about the role and ‘meaning’ of entropy and there is comparability between the concepts and meaning between ‘maximum power’, and ‘maximum entropy’. To reiterate, what Odum found is that “during self-organization, system designs develop and prevail that maximise power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency” (Howard Thomas Odum, 1971). This means that systems that maximise their flow of energy survive in competition. The question this raises is by what mechanisms is it that systems organize

themselves naturally and how is transport part of that process?