Natural selection and the number 42 for the universe

“It was a tough assignment,” said Deep Thought mildly.
“Forty-­‐two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for
seven and a half million years’ work?”
“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite
definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with
you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”
“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the
Universe and Everything!” howled Loonquawl.
“Yes,” said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools
gladly, “but what actually is it?”
– DOUGLAS ADAMS, “THE ULTIMATE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE”

Living matter changes as a result of evolution based on natural selection. After searching on the Internet to the question of what natural selection is, as such, it did not bring tangible results. For example, Wikipedia defines this term as

“Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term “natural selection”, contrasting it with artificial selection, which in his view is intentional, whereas natural selection is not.”

There is an explanation of what natural selection does, but it does not describe how it works. This is the same as explaining what addition is in mathematics, but not showing how it works.
With natural selection, it is necessary to collect the factors under which the adaptation of certain processes according to certain criteria to nature is carried out. However, this does not explain the mechanism of the natural process. Adaptation to certain criteria does not reveal the meaning of natural selection.
The impossibility of reducing the term natural selection to a simple definition provides fertile ground for creationists to think about the rationality of natural selection as a manifestation of God.

Mind

What is it?
How intelligent are humans?
The intellect is considered unique, and the creation of man is the crown of the creation of nature.
Based on Darwin’s evolution, the mind is designed to survive in nature.
Suppose humanity has come to an ideal friendly alliance. Nobody kills anyone. Based on religion, people only be fruitful, and multiply, getting their daily bread. What will become of intelligence? Degrades?
Covering the history of the ancient world, civilizations succeeded each other. However, human intelligence only grew. The evolutionary mechanism did not disappear anywhere. Religions, like social societies, have evolved from a primitive state to more complex ones. Work experience and observation of nature evolved into science.
There is a point of view that human conflicts spurred the development of society by creating natural selection. Conflicts are the struggle of already formed social groups. However, the groups do not differ only in random deviations. Social groups are a complex organism with its own hierarchy, which cannot arise from chaotic deviations. The mind of creatures participates in their creation. So how could intelligence emerge from chaos?

From complex to simple

Let’s try to replace social groups with groups of molecules with random fluctuations. How does natural selection know that one group of molecules is better than another? How will a group of molecules move to a more complex structure? How will it enter into symbiosis with another chemically inactive group of molecules and eventually begin to create copies of itself?
Karl R. Popper in 1977, speaking at the Darwin College of the University of Cambridge, expressed an idea.

“I suggest that downward causation can sometimes at least be explained as selection operating on the randomly fluctuating elementary particles. The randomness of the movements of the elementary particles — often called “molecular chaos” — provides, as it were, the opening for the higher-level structure to interfere. A random movement is accepted when it fits into the higher level structure; otherwise it is rejected.”

What kind of interference and what physical forces are involved in the penetration of not yet created complex structures into simple created ones is unclear. There is a desire to leave it at the mercy of God. (Creationists are jubilant!) Also possible postulate a reverse flow of time and perhaps even from a parallel world. These hypotheses take place in our world. However, it looks incredible when, for example, a bricklayer builds a wall and it either stays in place or is destroyed (rejected) based on the structure of a building that has not yet been constructed.

Let’s Get Back On Track

Mind. How great are the creations of mankind. Observing natural processes. By substantiating and systematizing them, man has learned to change the landscape of the earth at the global level. Create machines, creative works. But what for? What’s the point in this? The point of view of creationists and religion is the design of God. Atheism considers these questions to be meaningless, based on the fact that life arose spontaneously.

Synergetics

Synergetics introduces the concept of self-organization of structures with their subsequent complication. However, this conflicts with the second law of thermodynamics. A complex structure has a lower level of entropy than a simple structure. Yes, this is true if the system is closed and whole system following this rule. It is likely that when creating a complex structure with a lower entropy, the rest of the higher entropy will appear in the system somewhere. This will balance or even increase the total entropy, taking into account the work to create a new structure.
In other words. A simple structure turns into a more complex one. The entropy of the structure decreases. The chaos of the system in some place turns into order. Doesn’t this resemble human life activity?
For example. There was a desert. A man came and created a habitable environment for himself. By lowering the entropy of the desert landscape. In other words, the intellect is what lowers entropy. But why? What sense does this play a role in natural selection? Could it be that natural selection is a decrease in entropy? It seems the hand of God to be ordering the particles, creating a decrease in entropy.

Entropy reduction and mind

Suppose that the activity of the human mind is what lowers entropy. Then consciousness is a mechanism for lowering entropy. Every thought that arises in a person’s head is a solution to an optimization problem in which a decrease in entropy occurs. And depending on the incoming information, this is either the right decision or an error that needs to be corrected. It is likely that optimization helps in survival and, accordingly, lowering entropy as a manifestation of the mind is what evolution has created for humans through many mutations. But were they accidental? What is the criterion of natural selection from what a person grew smarter? Should I brush it off and say that this is normal natural selection. Since I am conscious and reasoning about this, then natural selection did it. Others who did not reflect on it were screened out as unsuccessful.
Suppose natural selection is a decrease in entropy. From chaos to order. As some intangible intellect, natural selection forms matter in the evolutionary process of nature. However, there is both living and inanimate nature. Does natural selection work for inanimate nature?

Natural selection and the universe

Nature in the universe is unified. The atoms of living matter are the same as in the stars. This means that the mechanism of natural selection should work at the macro level in the universe. As suggested earlier, this is a decrease in entropy.
Perhaps the Big Bang was also an evolution. Also, all matter in the universe had to be formed taking into account the same natural selection. The entire range of particles, from a photon to atoms of heavy metals, had to go through the stage of natural selection. Does lowering entropy to this? How should entropy go down by itself? What factor controls it? Is it possible that the decrease in entropy is a consequence, but not the cause of natural selection? What should be the main condition for the existence of a particle?

Stability and entropy

Let’s assume it’s sustainability. Otherwise, the particles would disintegrate without having time to create new more complex structures. Any stability theorems in mathematics? Looking through the sustainability criteria, one can see one pattern in them. For the stability of systems, it is necessary that one part of the system be homogeneous in sign. In other words, systems are stable if their entropy is at a lower level. Bingo. The natural selection is the selection of a more stable system, which, as a result, has a lower entropy. Considering the hypothesis that meaning of mind is a decrease in entropy. It may arise from the result of natural selection as a candidate with a more stable state. In this case it having a lower entropy when all other conditions being equal.

From chaos to order

But how can chaos be ordered and form candidates? Chaos is chaos. An endless brute forcing for chaos will lead to chaos, the probability of creating order is very small. Are there any examples of the formation of something from chaos in cosmology? For example galaxies. They did not form immediately. The gravitational force affected matter, from which stars and planets were formed in their orbits in a cosmic dance. After natural selection, only stable systems remained. The rest were decomposed in further transformations. Maybe in planets and asteroids similar dances took place in molecular transformations of matter?
Synergetics offers an example of Jabotinsky’s dissipative structures.

“A dissipative structure is a dissipative system that has a dynamical regime that is in some sense in a reproducible steady state. This reproducible steady state may be reached by natural evolution of the system, by artifice, or by a combination of these two.”

Dissipative structures arise from chaos from which only the more stable ones remain (natural selection). How do they arise out of chaos? What makes matter dance at the micro level? Our dimension is three-dimensional. In chaotically vibrating particles, there is a redistribution of energy dissipation between three dimensions. The planes of 3-dimensional space are located orthogonal to each other. Chaotic motion with the distribution of dissipation over planes causes harmonic oscillations of particles. Which, like waves on water, create coherent oscillations among themselves. These coherent vibrations form dissipative structures. From the created structures formed by coherent wave oscillations, competition arises from which only the most stable survives (natural selection).

Religion and Science in Natural Selection

Based on the fact that the nature of the universe in natural selection tends towards greater stability, it can be assumed that the goal of intelligent life is in search of this stability.
Religion and science are different branches from the same tree of human social life, created by natural selection.
Science creates knowledge that lowers entropy when used.
Religion creates a society with a stable social structure whose entropy is lower than chaotic unorganized communities. Science and religion have their pluses and minuses and both branches go to extremes due to which conflicts arise.
Perhaps there is a symbiosis in which science complements religion and vice versa. It can be assumed that natural selection will only leave more stable social societies that will be able to evolve in the future.

Conclusion

As mysterious as natural selection may seem, perhaps it is based on the simplest rule, where a more stable state takes precedence. Based on the hypothesis that a more stable state has a lower entropy, what is called mind is a momentary adherence to natural selection with a decrease in entropy.
Natural selection is universal. Natural selection is not limited to the living matter on planet earth. Matter in the universe is unified. The evolution of matter based on natural selection takes place in the universe from the moment of its inception. The manifestation of natural selection in the evolutionary process is the number 42 for the entire universe.