Principles of Evolution Revisited

Ilyin M.V.,

Full Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Head of the Center for Advanced Methodologies of Social and Humanitarian Research, Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, mikhaililyin48@gmail.com

elibrary_id: 1332 | ORCID: 0000-0001-6278-374X | RESEARCHER_ID: K-1361-2015

DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2020.01.08

Rubric: Theory and Methodology of Political Studies

For citation:

Ilyin M.V. Principles of Evolution Revisited. – Polis. Political Studies. 2020. No. 1. P. 104-113. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2020.01.08

This article was prepared with the support of the Russian Science Foundation, the project No. 17-18-01536.

Abstract

The paper reproduces three most important theses of the last article of 2009. It proposes nine new ones. The first interprets the inner form of evolution as “unwinding out”. The second concerns the driving force of evolution. It is the “incomplete nature” (Deacon), or absence of something missing. It launches order in chaos, life in the inert cosmos, reason in the biosphere, etc. The third thesis translates relations between the conditions and the results of evolution into Deaconian terms of entitionality and intentionality. The fourth thesis treats the relationship of thermodynamic and information entropies, as well as analogous negentropies. The fifth discusses inner and outer of things (Teilhard de Charden), folding and unfolding. The sixth deals with the models of Turing morphogenesis and Albert quantum automaton, identifies successive stages of morphogenesis from autooscillatory reactions and the origin of life to anthropo- and sociogenesis due to the alternation of phases of embodiment and disembodiment, and resultant emergence of new forms and form types. The seventh thesis concerns gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. It deploys the scheme of the third thesis of the 009 paper into a set of overlapping models of symbiosis of evolutionary forms. The eighth thesis examines the possibilities of epigenetics and interprets the unfolding, branching, and multidimensionality of evolution. The ninth deals with crises and the bottlenecks of evolution.

Keywords

evolution, emergence, incomplete nature, ententionality, intentionality, entropy, negentropy, morphogenesis, morphodynamics, embodiment, disembodiment, gradualism, punctuated equilibrium, epigenetics.

Full Text

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