http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Why-Neutrinos-are-important-tp6829617p6829900.html
It is not just a metaphor, the idea is that the universe is evolutionary at the deepest level, let us say the Planck scale. Space would replicate itself at each timestep, and time would be linked to the replication rate of the universe. Particles somehow emerge from spacetime in this replication process. I have not read the papers Marcus mentioned, maybe they contain some interesting hints.
"ERIC P. CHARLES" <
Interesting ideas! I'm not sure what would have to be true for the
evolution metaphor to make sense, however. Certainly the world is changing, but
to say that particles are 'evolving' is a more narrow claim. As I understand
the metaphor, at least two things would have to be true that I know next to
nothing about (and would appreciate any insight the group could
provide):
1) It would have to be the case that particles 'reproduce'
themselves in some sense, so that a 'lineage' of some sort could be
established.
2) Some particles would have to 'fit' the world better than
others, by some externally verifiable criterion independent of their
reproductive success.
Only then could we claim that the particles around
today fit today's world better than the particles of long ago would
have.
Again, this seems plausible to me, but I am not aware of any
evidence.
Eric
On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 01:49 PM,
"Jochen
Fromm" <[hidden email]> wrote:
I like the idea of "Quantum Evolution"
http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=Quantum_Evolution
Why has nobody tried to combine Darwin and Einstein?
I think this is a wonderful idea. If we treat particles -
esp. fermions - as an apdative unit, then a particle would
be a kind of evolutionary species, and a vertex becomes
a speciation event. Instead of a Feynman diagram we
would have a phylogenetic tree of particles.
I am not sure how bosons (the force carriers responsible
for interaction) and fermions (the matter carriers which
obey the Pauli exclusion principle) fit into this picture, but
maybe a boson would roughly correspond to a stem cell,
because it is a basic unit of replication which replicates
itself while moving through space-time, and a whole
organism or species to fermions, which cover a certain niche
in the ecology of cosmic evolution (the real reason for the
Pauli exclusion principle?).
If the universe is really evolutionary on the deepest
level, then there is an important lesson to learn from
the evolution of complex systems: the most abundant,
primitive and tiniest elements are often the oldest
and most fundamental ones. For example algae and bacteria
are countless, tiny and primitive, but they belong to
the most ancient life-forms on earth. Thus the smallest
particles, the insignificant neutrinos with their strange
inclination to oscillate, are perhaps more important than
we think, exactly because they interact only very weakly
with normal matter.
Therefore I think if there is something revolutionary
to discover, it is more likely the Neutrino than the
Higgs particle which will make the really big headlines,
even if this experiment turns out to be false.
-J.
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Eric Charles
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Penn State University
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College