What Kind of World Supports Darwinian Evolution? Quantum Foundational Options

TL;DR

This paper explores the quantum foundations necessary for Darwinian evolution, analyzing how classical records and irreversibility emerge from quantum mechanics and the implications for the nature of reality.

Contribution

It provides a neutral ontological framework for understanding how classicality and irreversibility arise in quantum mechanics, with implications for evolutionary processes.

Findings

Classical records emerge only in a preferred basis within quantum mechanics.

Decoherence alone does not select unique outcomes, requiring additional ontological assumptions.

A stochastic foundation with variable diffusion bridges quantum and classical regimes.

Abstract

Darwinian evolution requires (i) heritable records, (ii) repeatable copying with variation, and (iii) routine irreversibility. Categorical quantum mechanics (CQM) makes precise why ``copy'' and ``delete'' are not generic quantum operations: they exist only for a realized \emph{classical data} sector (a preferred basis/observable; a commutative structure). Decoherence explains how a pointer basis can be selected dynamically, but it does not by itself select a unique outcome. This motivates a neutral presentation of the main ontological options (unique-history, decohered multiplicity, agent-relative facticity, and a stochastic foundation with variable diffusion). We also note the relevance of the ``agency constraint'' argued by Adlam-McQueen-Waegell: in a strictly coherent, basis-unselected ``purely quantum'' regime, minimal agency fails due to no-cloning and linearity, which sharpens the role of classical resources for record-based processes. Extended Wigner's Friend scenarios then serve as a stress test, since they treat ``friends'' simultaneously as coherent quantum systems and as agents possessing stable records. Finally, a stochastic-mechanics foundation (with variable diffusion) offers a continuous bridge between quantum and classical regimes, and suggests a principled way to implement measurement update as conditioning plus a time-symmetric minimal-change rule.