I am a neurologist living in Bergen, Norway. I am interested in
selectionism and believe creative instructionism to be incompatible with
the Second law of thermodynamics. Here is what I believe:
In agreement with Schr=94dinger it is generally accepted that ontogenesis
feed on low entropy in accordance with classical thermodynamics.
I suggest that any species can be defined as a macrostate. The microstates
belonging to a macrostate of this kind constitute the genotypes coding for
all possible individuals of this species. (Even though individuals
within a species differ somewhat macroscopically they are relatively
similar compared to individuals of other species). The concept of entropy
used here in connection with phylogenesis is different form the concept
used in the paragraph above. The configurational entropy can be defined as
the logarithm of the total number of all possible genotypes coding for the
individuals belonging to a given species. It is clear that the entropy of
this macrostate is far lower than the entropy of the macrostate comprising
all genotypes of similar length not coding for viable organisms.
Every mutation is a step towards maximum configurational entropy. This is a
direct effect of the Second law. Because the phase space of better
adaptations is small compared to the phase space of nonadaptations, most
mutations are maladaptive. Better adaptations come to dominate because they
selfcopy more frequent or because they last longer. The selfcopying of
better adaptations is nothing but repeated ontogenesis and therefore
compatible with the Second law in agreement with Schr=94dinger.
The above reasoning shows that every step towards the domination of
better adaptations following darwinian mechanisms is in agreement with the
Second law. Lamarckism on the other hand means a shortcut towards better
adaptation without also producing bad adaptations. This means that
lamarckism is not a product of processes towards maximum configurational
entropy. On the contrary, lamarckism leads to reduction in total
configurational entropy thereby violateing the Second law.
Similarly it can be argued that instructionism is incompatible with the
Second law and therfore impossible.
I am not certain that the above reasoning is right. If it's wrong can you
spot the flaw?
Best wishes
Halvor N=E6ss.