Memory and Evolution

Expanding on the previous post...
I forgot to reference the TED talk that spawned that whole train of thought (aka pipeline):
Henry Markram and his Blue Brain

Anyways... moving on...

The ever increasing complexity in the Universe seems to stem from evolutionary systems. Clearly not just biological evolution... by evolutionary system I mean a system that has 1) a means of storing information, 2) a means of mutating that information and 3) a set of rules that determines which information is lost and which information is retained. In the context of biological evolution, you have genes that encode information, sex (for the most part) that mutates that information, and natural selection to determine which information is retained or lost.

At a lower level, you have molecules that store information with bonds (kind of trivial I know but bear with me now,) this information is mutated by interaction with other molecules, and the laws of physics govern whether bonds are retained. I'm not very familiar with chemistry, but from what I understand, there are various forces that determine whether bonds are retained. In covalent bonds, the attraction of the electrons of two atoms to the nuclei of both atoms holds the nuclei in equilibrium, overcoming the repulsion between nuclei and between the electron clouds. This type of bond clearly only works for certain atoms and some bonds are better retained, allowing larger structures to be built up, like carbohydrates, amino acids, etc. Some information survives... like the bond structure of a protein, while other information is lost or never created... like the formula for awkward pills (UAr₇C₂Si₁₄.)

At a higher level, we can look at human culture. Information in this system is stored by brains in the short term, but is transferred (at great risk of mutation) and "stored" in the long term by language. As societies have progressed, we've invented less lossy ways of transferring information (books, for the most part, and more recently a series of tubes.) Certain information survives, largely determined by what's interesting and useful. Physics is very useful, so it survives. Phrenology was not useful. One problem human society faces today is that the cost of storing information is so cheap that there is no longer any way of separating the chronic from the schwag.

I am very interested to see what the solution to this information overload is. It could very well be the jump in abstraction level from one evolutionary system to the other. Or, more likely, human beings will be unable to handle this quantity of data and will have to bow out to the next apex predator: SkyNet. *cue Terminator foot crushing skull and sinister music.*

Long story short: what the universe is about is not the survival of matter or energy. All that is fixed and will be dispersed at some point in the distant future. The universe is a big game of survival of the fittest information.