Complexity

We’re so used to everything falling apart over time that we don’t notice how everything in the Universe is becoming more complex. The complexity of objects increases over time, similar to the increase of entropy, only with the opposite vector. Toward greater complexity and order. The sweater isn’t unraveling — it’s being knitted further. This applies not only to living organisms but to inanimate matter as well. The Universe plays by increasing complexity.

Imagine the complexity of a DNA molecule that describes each of us. It can be measured based on the ability of molecules to perform certain functions. The fewer molecules that can perform a task, the higher their functional information.

Evolution is a special case of a general principle of system selection. Everything gets better, in a sense more beautiful. This applies to minerals, chemical elements, and even stars. After the Big Bang, simple elements — hydrogen and helium — evolved into more complex ones inside stars and supernovae. Carbon on Earth turned into coal, graphite, and diamond. Under pressure everything improved. Oxygen appeared, minerals, oil. Life appeared.

Evolution creates new possibilities that are impossible to predict. Down appeared as a thermoregulation mechanism in dinosaurs, and look at the feathers that allow birds to fly. Changes accumulate gradually, and then happen all at once. In biology, such leaps were the appearance of cells, nuclei, multicellular organisms, the nervous system. In physics these are phase transitions, in life — sudden insights.

The Universe grows us, and the world around us, and itself. The game creates itself, becomes more complex and more interesting. For us. For itself.