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EDU Conference 2017 - Cancun, Mexico

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Critique our new wiki pages on Convergent Evolution and Evolutionary Development (Evo Devo, ED).

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Recent Member Publications

Overview

The EDU Scholarly Research Community explores how our understanding of the universe as a complex system might be augmented by insights from information and computation studies, evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) biology, and hypotheses and models of quasi-evolutionary and quasi-developmental process applied at universal and subsystem scales. The major focus of our community is Biologically-Inspired Complexity Science and Philosophy (BICS&P) in ten areas of universal complexity. We think this approach helps us address a few of the "missing links" in complexity research today.

The underlying paradigm for cosmology is theoretical physics. It has helped us understand much about universal space, time, energy, and matter, but does not presently connect strongly to the emergence of information, computation, life and mind.

In the neo-Darwinian paradigm, adaptive evolutionary development guides the production of ordered, complex and intelligent structures. When we consider informational algorithms in biological systems, we can distinguish evolutionary processes which are stochastic, variety-creating, divergent, and contingently adaptive and developmental processes which produce convergent and systemically statistically predictable structures and trajectories internal to the developmental cycle. Such evo and devo algorithms emerged via replication and various selection functions, depending on environment. By analogy with the evolutionary development of two genetically identical twins, a variety of cosmology models predict that two parametrically identical universes would each exhibit unpredictably separate and unique "evolutionary" variation over their lifespan, and at the same time, a broad set of predictable "developmental" milestones and shared structure and function between them. In what other ways does our universe appear to be an evolutionary developmental system? What models suggest our universe may replicate and be selected upon in some extrauniversal environment? How do unpredictability and predictability interact in all replicating systems within our universe, from stars to chemistry to life, and what generic selection functions apply? To what extent may these intrauniversal models help us understand the way unpredictability and predictability work together in physics and cosmology, in service to universal complexity?

We are particularly interested in exploring hypotheses of universal evolutionary process (sometimes called "Universal Darwinism"), and universal developmental process (constraining and future-predictable laws, hierarchy, form, function, and life cycle) which may be operating in complex adaptive systems at all scales. We seek to better understand evolutionary and developmental processes of self-organization and adaptation at all scales, including the universal scale. If universe is a replicator within the multiverse, as preliminary models like cosmological natural selection propose, it would be expected to adaptively self-organize both its evolutionary and developmental processes, just as those processes have self-organized in living systems. Evo devo models propose that not only is our universe in many ways evolutionary (innovative, selectionist, contingent), but it is also developmental (conservative, hierarchical, convergent), as one would expect under replication. For example, the isotropy, compartmentalization, parallelism, and far-future similarity (convergence) we find in universal complex structure and function, at the hierarchy levels of galaxies, stars, and rocky planets, and which may also include astrobiological life and intelligence, has many physical and informational parallels to the isotropy, compartmentalization, parallelism, and far-future similarity seen in biological development.

For more, please see the EDU Project page. A brief article on our work by Michael Chorost: Title: The Ascent of Life (PDF). New Scientist magazine, 21 Jan 2012, pp. 35-37.

Listserves, People, Themes, Questions, Bibliography, and SIGs

For EDU notice and discussion lists, see Listserves. For current EDU community scholars and associates, please see the People page. For a list of research themes, see the Themes page. For some current research questions, see the Questions page. For a starter list of EDU-related publications by community scholars, and other publications of note, see Bibliography. For a list of primary special interest groups, see SIGs. For a list of future conference themes and proposals, see Conference Themes.

Founding Conference

Our first international EDU conference, Oct 8-9 2008 in Paris, France. It started our community, which has steadily grown since then on our listserves. See the Conference 2008 page for EDU 2008 program, abstracts, slides, and some audio of presentations.

Invitation

Do you have a respectable scientific community to discuss your more heterodox (unorthodox, provocative, exploratory) ideas in evolution, development, and complexity? Maybe you have a model or theory, or wish to discuss, critique, or design an experiment to evaluate a model or theory, that is a bit outside the mainstream? Intellectual breakthroughs don’t always fit with established traditions. We take this fact seriously in the EDU community, and offer a forum for careful, evidence-seeking discussion and critique of more creative and daring hypotheses. Evo Devo Universe has over a hundred academically-affiliated scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, engaged in serious, courteous, open-minded, constructive, and private discussion of the frontiers of science, in our main themes of evolution, development, and complexity. Our community uses the Chatham House Rule, where scholars are free to use the information from the discussion, but are not allowed to reveal the source, without that source's permission. This encourages high-reputation scholars to engage in frank debates on controversial topics, and to express early intuitions and tentative opinions that would not otherwise be expressed in more public venues.

Objectives

1. To establish an evo devo universe (EDU) research community to explore ideas, models, and questions involving evolutionary and developmental processes that may be operating in the universe as a system, which may itself exist within a more extensive cosmologic environment (the multiverse).
   
2. To bring together select cosmologists, physicists, chemists, biologists, complexity theorists, mathematicians, systems theorists, information theorists, computer scientists, philosophers, independent scholars, and bridge-building interdisciplinarians who have all addressed dimensions of this inquiry in previous publications.
   
3. To identify a multidisciplinary global community of scholars with interest in exploring analogies of the universe as an evolutionary and developmental system, and of the universe as complex system, and in discriminating potential evolutionary and developmental processes and their interrelationships on either universal or subsystem scales.
   
4. To conduct a periodic inquiry, conference publication series, and open access overview of current thinking on the evolution and development of the universe as a system.
   

How can I participate?

There are several ways you can participate in the Evo Devo Universe (EDU) community.

• Institutionally-affiliated academics and a limited number of independent scholars are encouraged to join the EDU-Talk discussion list, a moderated private list for scholars interested in exploring and critiquing models, hypotheses, questions, and speculations relating to the evolution and development of the universe and its subsystems. Your membership on the list can be public or private, as you prefer. Please complete the brief EDU-Talk subscription form.

• Consider coming to and presenting at one of our One-Day Conferences, typically co-located with other academic conferences, where you will meet and can build collaborations with other scholars with similar interests. You are also encouraged to start a SIG within our community on your particular subject of interest.

• If you are a researcher in physics, cosmology, chemistry, biology, philosophy, information, computation, complexity sciences or other field who is considering some of our Research questions, we will be glad to welcome you as a publicly listed member of the community, on our People page.

• If you are interested in doing bibliographic research, scholar recruiting, or community support, we will be glad to welcome you as an Associate member of the community. Perhaps you would like to help us build our bibliography and global scholar network related to EDU themes. We also welcome bibliographic and scholar recruitment suggestions.

• Anyone may join our public EDU-Notices list. This moderated, announcement-only list is low volume and will keep you abreast of EDU Community activities (conferences, publications, etc.). Members may also post notices of important events, call for papers, publications, etc. on EDU-related themes (notices subject to moderator approval) .

• We greatly appreciate one-time or ongoing financial support and any help or advice related to fundraising for the project. Individual or institutional donations may be made to ASF, the nonprofit sponsoring this community, by PayPal or check.

• We are grateful for initial funding of the project by The Complex Systems Institute, Paris (ISC-PIF)