Ryan Chapman - Why Do We Believe Things That Aren't True?

What evolves in Universal Darwinism?

Back in 2012, I wrote the article: An inherited unit for Universal Darwinism - in which I proposed that we reuse the term "gene" for this purpose. "Gene" is a bit of an overloaded term, but it could still be useful in this application, I claimed.

I still think we ought to be able to reuse the term "gene" - assuming that we define it in a sufficiently general way in the first place. So: if we say that a gene is a small peice of inherited information, I think we can use that definition in Universal Darwinism. Note that this is an information-theoretic definition that makes no reference to the world of atoms.

I mentioned some other candidate terminology in that 2012 post. Have others attempted to address this question in the interim?

Another candidate is "innovation". For example see this 2014 paper titled: " Spaces of the possible: universal Darwinism and the wall between technological and biological innovation". While the term "gene" comes from evolutionary biology, innovation comes from the stuudy of technological evolution. "Innovation" has the implication of novelty and newness. However, "innovation" strikes me as a broadly similar term.

Another attempt was made recently by Lee Cronin. He wrote this - about what counts as an "object" in his own reworking of evolutionary theory:

"An object is finite, is distinguishable, persists over time and is breakable such that the set of constraints to construct it from elementary building blocks is quantifiable."

I think that's a bit of a hot mess. It seems to say that things have to be "breakable" to evolve. I don't see the need to refer to infinite objects or unquantifiable sets either. However, perhaps we should take the term "object" seriously as a candidate term for "things that evolve". Another similar candidate is "entity".

None of these more recent proposals have much to do with evolutionary biology - but some may have their merits.

Update: Bing offers this: "The generalization made in Universal Darwinism is to replace “organism” with any recognizable pattern, phenomenon, or system." No catchy terminology - but it does at least try to capture some of the breadth of the generalization intended.