What if the laws of physics are not fixed, but constantly evolving?
Biochemist Timothy Jackson argues that contrary to our assumptions that reality is governed by fixed laws, fundamental reality is a lawless flux, a chaos of unpredictable change. What needs explaining is not chaos but the stability and order that emerge from it.
Darwin’s central insight, Jackson suggests, was to show how such order might emerge, via natural selection: a principle which can explain, but never predict, the patterns that make up the world.
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We tend to think of reality as made up of things, governed by fixed laws that determine how they change over time. But biochemist Timothy Jackson argues that this is back to front: fundamental reality is a lawless flux, a chaos of unpredictable change, and what needs explaining is not chaos but the stability and order that emerge from it. The “laws” of physics are not eternal truths but descriptions of patterns that have persisted long enough to look permanent. Darwin’s central insight, Jackson suggests, was to show how such order might emerge, via natural selection—a principle which can explain, but never predict, the patterns that make up the world.
From physicalism to “biologism”
