Chapter 6: Evo Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture

The underlying paradigm for cosmology is theoretical physics. In this paper we explore ways this framework might be extended with insights from information and computation studies and evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) biology. We also briefly consider implications of such a framework for cosmic culture. In organic systems, adaptive evolutionary development guides the production of intelligent, ordered, and complex structures. In such systems we can distinguish evolutionary processes that are stochastic, creative, and "divergent," and developmental processes that produce statistically predictable, robust, conservative, and "convergent" structures and trajectories.

We will briefly model our universe as an evolutionary, information processing, and developmental system -- as an "evo compu devo" universe (abbreviated "evo devo" hereafter). Our framework will try to reconcile the majority of unpredictable, evolutionary features of universal emergence with a special subset of potentially statistically predictable and developmental universal trends, including:

- Accelerating advances in universal complexity (however we define such advances, e.g., Aunger 2007) seen over the last half of the universe s life history in contrast to deceleration during the first half
- Increasing spatial and temporal (space time) locality of universal complexity development
- Apparently hierarchical emergence of increasingly matter and energy efficient and matter and energy dense substrates (platforms) for adaptation and computation
- Apparent accelerating emergence, on Earth, of increasingly postbiological (technological) forms of intelligence, and their likely future trajectories.

We use the phrase "evo devo" without the hyphen here to distinguish this speculative philosophy and systems theory from the legitimate science of "evo-devo" biology from which we seek insights.