An evolutionary process without variation and selection

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new evolutionary process called Self-Other Reorganisation (SOR) that explains cumulative adaptive change without variation and selection, especially in early life and cultural evolution, emphasizing internal self-organization and interaction.

Contribution

It introduces SOR as a primitive evolutionary mechanism operating without variation and selection, expanding understanding of evolution in non-Darwinian domains.

Findings

SOR can operate without genetic variation or selection.

It models evolution through autocatalytic networks and self-organization.

SOR relates to Lamarckian inheritance and internal self-maintenance.

Abstract

Natural selection successfully explains how organisms accumulate adaptive change despite that traits acquired over a lifetime are eliminated at the end of each generation. However, in some domains that exhibit cumulative, adaptive change -- e.g., cultural evolution, and earliest life -- acquired traits are retained; these domains do not face the problem that Darwin's theory was designed to solve. Lack of transmission of acquired traits occurs when germ cells are protected from environmental change, due to a self-assembly code used in two distinct ways: (i) actively interpreted during development to generate a soma, and (ii) passively copied without interpretation during reproduction to generate germ cells. Early life and cultural evolution appear not to involve a self-assembly code used in these two ways. We suggest that cumulative, adaptive change in these domains is due to a lower-fidelity evolutionary process, and model it using Reflexively Autocatalytic and Foodset-generated networks. We refer to this more primitive evolutionary process as Self-Other Reorganisation (SOR) because it involves internal self-organising and self-maintaining processes within entities, as well as interaction between entities. SOR encompasses learning but in general operates across groups. We discuss the relationship between SOR and Lamarckism, and illustrate a special case of SOR without variation.