The speaker proposes a “Law of Increasing Functional Information” as a universal principle that captures the tendency of many natural and artificial systems—from atoms and minerals to life, technology, and even computer programs—to become more ordered, patterned, and functional over time. While the second law of thermodynamics describes a universal increase in disorder (entropy), it does not explain the observed rise of complex, functional structures. The new law instead quantifies complexity through *functional information*: the logarithm (base 2) of the ratio between all possible configurations of a system’s components and the subset that actually perform a useful function. Systems that possess numerous diverse interacting parts, mechanisms for generating new configurations, and a selection pressure favoring certain functions will see their functional information increase. Examples include the growth of Earth’s mineral diversity (≈142 bits of functional information today), the evolution of organic molecules in the lab, and the development of artificial life in simulations. The framework suggests that environments with energy flow, material exchange, and selection—such as the subsurface oceans of Europa, Enceladus, or Titan—could host evolving systems. The law is presented as a testable hypothesis, subject to refinement or replacement, much like any scientific theory.
1. Evolution did not begin solely at the origin of life; chemical and cosmic complexification preceded the first living cell.
2. All evolving systems (atoms/isotopes, minerals, life, technology) are conceptually equivalent.
3. Therefore they may be described by a single unifying natural law.
4. The 'Law of Increasing Functional Information' aims to describe a universal characteristic of the cosmos.
5. Systems over time tend to become more complex, patterned, diverse, and interesting.
6. This increase in order is measured by a metric called functional information.
7. Information is considered as fundamental a variable in the cosmos as mass, energy, or charge.
8. Over the past ~400 years, scientists have established ten canonical laws of physics.
9. These ten laws describe virtually all everyday experiences: motion, forces, energy, electromagnetism, gravity.
10. Among the ten macroscopic laws, only the second law of thermodynamics has an inherent arrow of time.
11. The second law states that in a closed system, entropy (disorder) increases over time.
12. Everyday observations such as scuffed shoes and the irreversibility of scrambling an egg illustrate the second law.
13. Molecular activities like electron movement and bond formation/breaking also increase entropy.
14. Entropy increase alone does not drive the observed complexification of the universe.
15. After the Big Bang, the universe had no structure; protons and neutrons formed, then atoms, then molecules, then stars, then planets, minerals, atmospheres, oceans, and finally life.
16. Life subsequently gave rise to language, art, social structures, technologies, and evolving computer programs.
17. Evolving systems share three common aspects: numerous diverse interacting components, mechanisms for generating many configurations, and selection pressure for function.
18. Fundamental selection forces include static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation.
19. Static persistence refers to spatio‑temporal continuity of matter arrangements (e.g., stable atomic nuclei, stable crystals).
20. Dynamic persistence applies to open systems that exchange matter, energy, and information with their environment (e.g., humans breathing and eating).
21. Novelty selection favors new abilities (seeing, flying, swimming, walking) that enable exploration of previously inaccessible environments.
22. Life’s evolution appears open‑ended, continually exploring new parameter and possibility spaces, unlike mineral evolution.
23. There is a yin‑yang relationship between increasing disorder (entropy) and increasing information/patterning.
24. At the basic level, information can be quantified by Kolmogorov complexity—the number of bits needed to describe a system.
25. Functional information is a different kind of complexity that increases over time in evolving systems.
26. The functional information metric was first introduced by Nobel laureate Jack Szostak in 2003 for biological molecules.
27. It has since been applied to artificial life and language.
28. Functional information of a system is defined by the ratio of configurations that perform a function of interest to the total number of possible configurations.
29. A higher functional information value corresponds to rarer, more functional configurations.
30. Functional information can be calculated; for Earth’s minerals today it is about 142 bits.
31. A mineral is defined as a naturally occurring solid with a well‑defined chemical composition and atomic structure.
32. The first minerals condensed from cooling stellar atmospheres, yielding about 25 tiny stardust minerals that seeded planet‑forming material.
33. When Earth became alive, new processes emerged for producing additional minerals.
34. While the number of known minerals has grown, the combinatorial possibilities of mineral compositions increase far more rapidly.
35. Seventy‑two chemical elements participate in mineral formation.
36. The total number of possible atomic combinations for minerals is on the order of 10⁴⁶.
37. Only a tiny fraction of these combinations produce stable minerals; approximately 6000 minerals are known.
38. Functional information has been observed to increase in artificial life simulations and in laboratory experiments with organic molecules.
39. Environments such as Jupiter’s moon Europa, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and Saturn’s moon Titan are being examined for the three ingredients needed for evolving systems.
40. The second law of thermodynamics alone does not account for the origin of life according to the presented hypothesis; an additional description involving functional information is required.
41. Increase in functional information through selection is consistent with but distinct from the second law of thermodynamics.
42. The proposed law does not imply purpose; it does not aim to create conscious brains, which are merely one outcome.
43. The theory of increasing functional information is not yet complete and may itself evolve under selective pressures.
44. This work represents only the beginning of investigating a universal law of evolution.