Evolution of theories

This article was written following and during conversations with Professor Yuval Neman who devoted his time to me and even brought up fruitful ideas which were incorporated, with his permission, in this article, and for that, thank you.

Yehuda Sabdarmish

Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/ideasevo.html

introduction

The beginning of the theory of evolution with Darwin's book "The Origin of Species". In it he referred only to the narrow field of biological evolution. Darwin showed how through a process of adaptation and struggle the species were able to change and develop and reach the great variety of animals that exists today.
This approach, in which simple production develops in a natural process, attracted the attention of scientists who tried to see if a similar process was possible for other natural phenomena as well.
And so we became aware of new types of evolution such as: evolution of matter, evolution of stars, evolution of universes, social evolution and even evolution of ideas and more (Yuvel Na'eman: order from the random).

In this article we will analyze the evolution of theories. But first we will define biological evolution, we will explain how it flows and we will see the surprising and exact similarity between this evolution and the evolution of theories.

Biological evolution

In defining biological evolution we need two main concepts:
A. living creature
B. a given environment in which the living creature is found.

The evolutionary process begins when changes occur in the environment in which a living being is found (a given environment). If the changes are not significant, then the living creature will continue its normal course of life. But if the changes are to be significant, there must be a significant change in the animal production as well.

For example: a. A living creature - in our case rabbits are mainly white in color.
B. The given environment - snowy mountains with wolves.

In this situation, the white rabbit is not visible against the background of the snow and manages to survive and not be eaten by wolves. Those few rabbits who were "lucky enough" to be born with brown colors that stand out against the background of the snow are killed mainly.

Let's now assume that a serious change has occurred in the given environment and snow does not fall in the mountains. Now the white rabbits stand out against the brown earth. And they are easily destroyed. The result will be a change in rabbits. The brown rabbits will survive longer than the white ones and therefore, the percentage of brown rabbits will increase, and gradually, the color of the rabbits will be mainly brown.
We then saw that a significant change in the given environment (the amount of snow), caused a significant change (color) in the animal production (rabbits).

It goes without saying that the ratio of changes also works in the opposite direction, that is, from the living production to the given environment. For example: if as a result of any mutation the rabbits will be faster, this must affect the characteristics of the wolves, and these, as we know, belong to the living environment of the rabbits. The effect does not necessarily have to be the speed of the wolves. It can be expressed in another factor that will contribute to them such as: openings, color (white) that they will receive, etc.

Evolution of theories

As we have seen, for biological evolution we need two factors:

A. living creature.
B. the given environment in which the creature lives.

On the other hand, we will have two corresponding factors in the evolution of theories:

A. theory
B. A universe to which the theory applies.

In order for us to be in full agreement with biological evolution, we must define the above two factors in a precise and careful manner. Prof. Yuval Neman referred me to the problematics arising from the very choice of these two factors:
A theory is an abstract thing, and a universe is a tangible thing, so it is not possible to compare gender with non-gender. In the classic case of biological evolution, the two concepts, the living creature and the environment in which the creature lives, are tangible things. Since theory is an abstract concept we must compare it only with an abstract concept. And so we will define a new abstract concept called "known universe"

Definition: known universe - everything we know about the universe at a certain moment.

In this definition, "everything we know" is a concept of knowledge which is an abstract concept as well as "theory" and therefore it will be possible to compare them.

Let's move on to the definition of the term "theory".
The theory must refer to the concept of the known universe, it must be correct, and since there are many correct theories that explain the same known universe with a different degree of complexity (it will be explained immediately below) it must also be the simplest (according to Occam's razor which says: among several given possibilities Choose the simplest one).

Such a theory will be called: "successful theory" whose definition will be: a theory that explains the known universe correctly and in the simplest way.

That is, the two factors, corresponding to the animal and the environment, in the biological theory, will be in the case of the evolution of the theories:

A. Successful theory - the simplest correct theory that explains the known universe.
B. Known universe - everything we know at a given moment about the universe.

Now we will check what is the number of successful theories that can explain a given known universe?.
It is easy to show how from one correct theory many other theories can be produced, for example: let's take a theory in which a formula such as: F=m*a (the force is equal to the product of the mass times the acceleration) appears. Here it is possible to produce endless theories in which the above formula will be slightly different, and the change cannot be detected if it is smaller than a measurement error that always exists in measurements. For example: a theory with 1.000001*F=m*a can be correct if the deviation in the measurements is thousands.
Prof. Milgrom of the Weizmann Institute uses a tiny change in this formula in his attempt to explain the problem of missing matter in galaxies. (See "Scientific American", the Hebrew edition).

However, we assume that there must be a correct theory for every known universe, "Couldn't there be known universes that don't have a correct theory to explain them"? (Yoval Na'im).

We will see later how evolution itself helps to clarify the matter (see the conclusions in the table).

We will then move on to a comparison between biological evolution and the evolution of theories and we will see the perfect compatibility between the two.

All you have to do is replace the words:
creature, living, adapted, environment, given, in biological evolution,
For matching words:
Theory, successful, explains, universe, known, in the evolution of theories.

explanation

We will give an example that will show us the evolution of theories, step by step as it appears in the table.

A successful theory is given - Aristotle's theory, which explained the universe known at the time. She was successful because she perfectly explained everything that was known at the time about the universe and hers for over a thousand years!. The explanation was based on the "aspirations" of various objects to reach the concentration of their kind". Therefore, the fire goes up to the stars, the rivers flow to the sea, stones fall to the ground, etc. This theory also explained that a heavy body will aspire more than a light body to reach the ground, therefore it will also fall faster. As long as it was agreed that the then known universe behaved this way, no contradiction arose and Aristotle's theory was successful. However, in the known (Aristotle's) universe a significant change happened, Galileo Galilei performed his famous experiment from the Tower of Pisa. The two balls, the heavy and the light, which were thrown from the top of the tower, reached the ground at the same time contrary to what follows from Aristotle's theory. And as in the case of the white rabbits who suddenly live in an environment lacking Snow and therefore must undergo a change, Aristotle's theory that suddenly lives in Galileo's environment must also undergo a change, or be replaced. The theories, like the rabbits, enter a phase of distress, and attempts to find solutions to the crisis.
Now, since Aristotle's theory could not fit into Galileo's new known universe, it was replaced a few decades later by Newton's theory.

On the other hand, as in the case where a change in rabbits affects their given environment, so also a change in a successful theory can affect the known universe. For example: the story of the discovery of the omega minus particle.

Prof. Yuval Neman, while still in England, chose to attack a very complicated problem for which there was no hint of a solution at the time, the problem of elementary particles. The list of elementary particles got longer and longer without order. What began in 1911 with the discovery of the proton, to which the neutron was added in 1932, as particles found in the atomic nucleus, continued with the discovery of the particles carrying "strangeness" STRANGENESS and then with the discovery of the mesons beginning in 1949, so that by 1960 there were already about a hundred "elementary particles" different and had no idea if that was all or if there were more and what their properties were.
At the end of 1960, Naman identified the "order" behind the list that seemed so embarrassing (the order has since been called "the eight way"). He noticed an empty slot that remained in the same order, and published in 1962 a prediction of the properties of a particle that had not yet been discovered and was named "omega-minus" - "omega" because it is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and "minus" because of its electrical charge, which according to the calculation is to the electron charge. The prediction gave the mass, electric charge, spin, and strangeness of the yet-to-be-discovered particle.
That is, what we have done here is actually a mental exercise regarding the possibility of finding a certain particle. This thought experiment, which is in theory, caused an actual, physical experiment to be done, which actually caused the then-known universe to change.
And indeed, in February 1964 while he was loyal in California, the BROOKHAVEN laboratory of the American Atomic Energy Commission announced that in an experiment designed to allow the formation of the omega-minus, it was indeed created and exactly with the predicted properties. And today most accelerators have omega-minus rays.
Naaman was also the one who deciphered the reason for the order he found - an order that predicts the existence of 3 sub-particles (fundamental building blocks) from which all the particles found up to that time are made, and gave them the name QUARK (in Hebrew Naaman suggests the name "Kurt"). If we call the three "a", "b", "c", then the proton is "aab", the neutron is "abb" and the omega-minus is "gggg" and so on.
The sorting according to the "Eight Way" was also proposed by the American physicist M. Gelman about two months after Neman (but he won the Nobel Prize for it in 1969). The existence of quarks was also proposed by Gelman and Zweig - two years after Neman. And their existence was experimentally proven in 1969. The three physicists who did the experiment (Taylor, Friedman, Kendall) were awarded the Nobel Prize for it in 1990.
Another example: a similar event that happened in chemistry, where there were dozens of elements without understanding the order, until the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev proposed the "periodic table" of the chemical elements - even there it was verified with the discovery of an element that filled an empty slot and helped to understand the structure of the atom in that the atomic charge is The number of protons and the atomic weight is the number of protons and neutrons together.

Let's return to the evolution table: in section C of the comments in the table on the biological side it is said: "The factors that will determine the essence of the new production are the nature of mutations, serendipity, destruction, convergence, etc. "If we manage to define and understand the concepts: mutations, serendipity, destruction, convergence, etc. ' In the evolution of the theories, we will get a tremendous tool that will allow us to find the new successful theory. But that's a topic for another article.
Later, from the conclusions appearing in the table, we accept that the entropic principle is the one that guarantees us a successful theory. Admittedly, the word "entropy" derives from the word "man" which is a living being, therefore if there is a principle in the case of theories, it must derive from the word "theory" ("the theoretical principle"?). But, if we agree that theory, whatever it is, stems from being a "person", then it is clear that the entropic principle is responsible for any theoretical principle, and necessarily also for the conclusion:

If the entropic principle requires the existence of a living creature (superior) in biological evolution, then there must always be a successful (superior) theory in theoretical evolution!

That is, the existence of a successful theory for any known universe will be conditional on two things:

1. Does the entropy principle really exist?
2. The possibility of transformation between biological evolution and the evolution of theories. Explanation: Even if there is such a transformation in the first stages, it does not necessarily mean that it will continue in the following stages as well (David Yom's induction problem).

Here we need to pay attention to significant differences between the approach of the philosopher Karl Popper and his doctrine of falsification in relation to correct theories (see Yuval Na'eman, order from the random) and the approach in this article.

Popper emphasized the opinion that even if we go back and prove in many experiments that a given theory holds up well, it is never possible to prove its correctness. Moreover, one of her failures (in an experiment) is enough for her to be disproved!

The approach in this article claims otherwise:

A. Any successful theory that explains the known universe at its time is successful and even perfect for its time. She is not supposed to and cannot prove her correctness regarding what is unknown in her time! There is no theory in its time that is more perfect than it. To take an example and demand in Newton's time to know how the known universe will be structured in the twentieth century, after the Michelson-Morley experiment and to adapt a successful theory to it, is something that borders on prophecy and not science.
B. Even if in Newton's time, miraculously, someone (a prophet?) had come and told everyone the wonders of relativity, no one would have accepted it. It is true that this is a correct theory (like many others!), but it was not the simplest, and therefore, it would not have been accepted because of the "Occam's Razor" principle.
third. Popper's approach to experiments is that their purpose is to disprove existing theory, the approach in this article is that the purpose of experiments is to change the known universe. This is a fundamental difference! Only if the change is significant, will this require a change in the existing successful theory.
d. Popper's refutation stage is sharp and immediate, according to him one failure of the theory (in an experiment) is enough for it to be disproved!. But in fact this is not the case!, a presumption over any existing theory that explanations upon explanations will be found to explain the problematic measurement. For example: measuring the speed of movement in spiral galaxies is actually a measurement that is supposed to disprove the theory of gravity that exists today, but the existing theory, with the characteristic ease of theories in distress, states that the mass of spiral galaxies is ten or a hundred times greater, and the best scientists are looking for this missing mass, and not with much success!
God. Although the distress stage of an existing successful theory is the first sign of the need to replace it, let's not forget that the explanations of the successful theory may be correct and simple (successful), and sufficient for the continued existence of the successful theory. For example: it is possible that the mass in the spiral galaxies is greater.
and. According to Popper, the incorrectness of the theory is the reason for wanting to replace it, but we see that a theory can always find us explanations, so what then is the reason that will motivate us to replace the theory? And the answer is: the complication she gets! Because for a successful theory it is necessary to have two things, correctness and simplicity. The complicated theory will not meet the principle of simplicity required of it according to "Ockam's Razor"!

Prof. Yuval Naaman directed the author to an article written by him that looks at evolution in a more extensive way so that Karl Popper's refutation theory, which holds a place of honor in the scientific philosophical world, is correct, and does not even contradict the evolutionary process. In this article, Prof. Yuval Neman looks at evolution as a partial system of a space of chances for various phenomena, and evolution itself is also a system of chances for living things to survive. The article is in English and requires scientific and mathematical knowledge. The author refers interested readers to him.

In conclusion

It is not certain that Charles Darwin himself, when he published the "Origin of Species" could have hypothesized the enormous theoretical capacity inherent in evolution in any area. You can easily show the use of evolution in any subject that develops, for example art. Or evolution in painting, evolution in cinema, theater. And by the way, can we say that the Greek theater failed, (false according to Popper) because it did not take advantage of means that appear in more modern (electronic?) theaters that are used today, or was it perfect for its time, as the author of this article believes?
Today we talk about evolutions of any kind, starting with social evolutions and ending with the evolutions of universes. But of course, because the theories, whatever they are, are the basis of all scientific development, then the evolution of theories is the leading factor in science.
The marvelous compatibility between biological evolution and the evolution of theories, when both are intertwined with the entropic principle, gives space and thought for further developments from our knowledge of what we know about the concept of "life".
Analyzing concepts such as: mutations, annihilations, convergence, etc. regarding the evolution of theories, will give us an important tool regarding how we will get new successful theories.

Comments: E-mail sevdermish@surfree.net.il Tel. 9505072-09, 570989-052.

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