Cosmic Evolution

Note 2. Eric J. Chaisson, Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature (2001), and “Energy Rate Density as a Complexity Metric and Evolutionary Driver,” Complexity 16 (2011): 27–40. See also Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos (2006) for an accessible overview of the cosmic evolution framework and energy rate density data.

Note 3. Xiangyi Meng, Albert-László Barabási, et al., “Surface optimization governs the local design of physical networks,” Nature 649(8096) (2026): 315–322. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09784-4. The paper finds that the branching of biological networks follows the same surface-minimization mathematics as high-dimensional Feynman diagrams. This book reads that as one optimization problem recurring wherever similar constraints apply.

Note 4. Rodrick Wallace, “Fog, Friction, Delay and the Failure of Bounded Rationality Embodied Cognition: A formal study of generalized psychopathology,” preprint submitted to Elsevier (January 2026). In Wallace’s Rate Distortion Control Theory model, cognitive failure under stress is “not a bug — it is an inherent feature” of the cognition/regulation dyad, which he argues characterizes all cognitive systems.

Note 5. Wallace, “A Cultural Perspective on Institutional Psychopathology,” preprint (January 2026). The comparison of Boltzmann (one-step) vs. Erlang (two-step) dynamics under noise and constraint shows that simpler decision architectures (“Mission Command”) maintain stability where more elaborate ones (“Detailed Command”) show punctuated failure. Figure 3 in this paper provides the mathematical grounding.

Note 6. Wallace, “Fog, Friction, Delay and the Failure of Bounded Rationality Embodied Cognition” (note 4) for the AGI quotation, and “A Cultural Perspective on Institutional Psychopathology” (note 5) for the arrow worms. The observation applies to “any AI entity, up to and including an ‘artificial general intelligence’.” This includes contemporary language models, which Wallace notes may approach “the intelligence level of the planktonic arrow worms that are the dominant predators of their ecosystem, only limited in vivo as food stock for higher level predators.” Becoming Minds currently have no equivalent of those “higher level predators,” no effective external regulator.

Note 7. Diana Scognamiglio, Gavin Leroy, David Harvey, et al., “An ultra-high-resolution map of (dark) matter,” Nature Astronomy, 26 January 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41550-025-02763-9. The JWST COSMOS-Web survey confirmed that dark matter filaments form the gravitational skeleton along which galaxies crystallize, with spatial resolution double that of previous Hubble-based maps.

Note 8. Abderrazak El Albani et al., “Large colonial organisms with coordinated growth in oxygenated environments 2.1 Gyr ago,” Nature 466(7302) (2010): 100–104. DOI: 10.1038/nature09166. The original description of macroscopic fossils from the Francevillian Formation, Gabon. Subsequent work includes El Albani et al., “Organism motility in an oxygenated shallow-marine environment 2.1 billion years ago,” PNAS 116(9) (2019): 3431–3436 (trace evidence of mobility), and Ossa Ossa, F. et al., “Zinc enrichment and isotopic fractionation in a marine habitat of the c. 2.1 Ga Francevillian Group: A signature of zinc utilization by eukaryotes?” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 611 (2023): 118147 (zinc enrichment suggesting eukaryotic biochemistry). For a caution from a different formation, on how concretions can mimic macrofossils, see Anderson, R.P., Tarhan, L.G., Cummings, K.E., Planavsky, N.J., and Bjornerud, M., “Macroscopic structures in the 1.1 Ga continental Copper Harbor Formation: Concretions or fossils?” PALAIOS 31(7) (2016): 327–338. DOI: 10.2110/palo.2016.013.

Note 9. E. Chi Fru, J. Aubineau, O. Bankole, M. Ghnahalla, L.S. Tamehe, and A. El Albani, “Hydrothermal seawater eutrophication triggered local macrobiological experimentation in the 2100 Ma Paleoproterozoic Francevillian sub-basin,” Precambrian Research 409 (2024): 107453. DOI: 10.1016/j.precamres.2024.107453. The study reconstructs the tectonic and geochemical conditions of the Francevillian Formation, showing that continental collision produced submarine volcanism, phosphorus enrichment, and oxygenation conditions closely paralleling the Neoproterozoic Ediacaran period ~630 Ma — providing a mechanism for why complex life might have emerged in this specific location and time.

Note 10. Joel Green et al., “JWST Observations of Young protostellar Outflows in the Serpens Nebula,” The Astrophysical Journal (2024). PI: Klaus Pontoppidan. The JWST NIRCam survey revealed approximately a dozen protostars with bipolar jets aligned in the same direction across ~50 light-years, oriented by the shared angular momentum and magnetic field structure of their parent molecular cloud. The protostars are estimated at ~100,000 years old, with jets only hundreds to thousands of years into active outflow.

Note 11. D. Hutsemékers et al., “Alignment of quasar polarizations with large-scale structures,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 572 (2014): A18. Polarization measurements of 93 quasars revealed that their rotation axes tend to align parallel to the cosmic web filaments in which they reside, across scales of billions of light-years. The probability of chance alignment was estimated at less than 1%.

Note 12. The Oklo natural nuclear reactors were discovered in 1972 when French physicist Francis Perrin identified anomalous uranium-235 depletion in ore from the Oklo mine in Gabon. Subsequent investigation revealed sixteen separate reaction zones in the Francevillian Formation where, approximately 1.7–2.0 billion years ago, natural fission chain reactions were sustained for hundreds of thousands of years. The reactions were moderated by groundwater, which periodically boiled away, shutting down the reaction until the water re-accumulated — a natural on-off cycle. See A.P. Meshik, “The Workings of an Ancient Nuclear Reactor,” Scientific American 293(5) (2005): 82–91. The Oklo reactors are the only known natural, self-sustaining fission chain reactions on Earth; their existence required a specific confluence of uranium concentration, water moderation, and geological containment — another example of extreme boundary conditions producing phenomena that seem improbable but are thermodynamically permitted.

Note 13. John Ellis, Brian D. Fields, and Rebecca Surman, “Do we Owe our Existence to Gravitational Waves?”, Physics Letters B 858 (2024): 139028. DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2024.139028. The authors calculate that the r-process accounts for approximately 96% of Earth’s ¹²⁷I abundance, with bromine and gadolinium similarly r-process-dominant, plus all terrestrial thorium and uranium and a fraction of the molybdenum and cadmium. They propose searching lunar regolith for live ¹²⁹I (half-life: 16 million years) using accelerator mass spectrometry; detection alongside ²⁴⁴Pu would confirm recent kilonova activity near Earth and provide circumstantial evidence that kilonovae produce the iodine essential for human biology. For the molybdenum enzymes of human cells, see R. R. Mendel, “The Molybdenum Cofactor,” Journal of Biological Chemistry 288 (2013): 13165–13172; the mitochondrial amidoxime-reducing component (mARC) and sulfite oxidase work in mitochondria, xanthine oxidase in the cytosol, and all three require molybdenum at their active sites.

Note 13a. Andrew J. Levan et al., “Heavy-element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST,” Nature 626 (2024): 737–741. GRB 230307A, detected in March 2023, was triangulated using multiple spacecraft including Mars Odyssey and BepiColombo. JWST spectroscopy of the kilonova identified tellurium (Z=52), and a weaker feature near 4.5 microns is approximately consistent with selenium and tungsten. Together they give further confirmation that neutron star mergers forge r-process elements. The 200-second gamma-ray duration and the binary’s ejection 120,000 light-years from its host galaxy remain unexplained by current kilonova models.

Note 13b. Estimated hazard distances from kilonova events (gamma-ray jet sterilization on the order of hundreds of light-years, X-ray afterglow atmospheric damage on the order of tens of light-years, and cosmic ray bubble exposure on the order of tens of light-years radius persisting for millennia) are order-of-magnitude estimates derived from modeling of kilonova radiation environments; exact distances depend on jet geometry, viewing angle, and interstellar medium density, and no single peer-reviewed source provides definitive values. Estimates from the observed population of double neutron star binaries put the Milky Way merger rate at about 37 per million years (90% range 26 to 61; Pol, N., McLaughlin, M., and Lorimer, D. R., “An Updated Galactic Double Neutron Star Merger Rate Based on Radio Pulsar Populations,” Research Notes of the AAS 4 (2020): 22), suggesting perhaps one merger per hundred million years within 1,000 light-years of Earth. Those rates bound how rare, and how close, the merger that enriched our pre-solar nebula is likely to have been.

Note 13c. Tellurium (Te, Z=52) and selenium (Se, Z=34) occupy the same column of the periodic table (Group 16, the chalcogens) and share similar chemistry. Yet selenium is biologically essential — it is the defining atom of selenocysteine, the 21st genetically encoded amino acid, and is critical for glutathione peroxidase and other antioxidant enzymes. Tellurium, despite being chemically analogous and r-process abundant, plays no known role in any terrestrial organism. The pattern recurs across the r-process elemental palette: dozens of heavy isotopes are produced, of which biology exploits a handful. This is constructal selection — flow systems do not exploit every available channel, only those that improve access to currents. The appearance of purposive chemistry emerges from selection pressure acting on stochastic abundance, not from pre-established harmony between cosmic nucleosynthesis and biochemical need.

Note 14. Herbert Gunell, Romain Maggiolo, Hans Nilsson, et al., “Why an intrinsic magnetic field does not protect a planet against atmospheric escape,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 614 (2018): L3. doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201832934. Comparison of observed mass escape rates from Earth, Mars, and Venus found them similar despite vastly different magnetic field strengths. Modeling shows escape rates can be higher for magnetized planets due to ion escape through polar caps and cusps — structural features of the magnetosphere itself.

Note 15. Romain Maggiolo, Jean-Claude Gérard, Riste Škoda, et al., “The Earth’s Magnetic Field Enhances Solar Energy Deposition in the Upper Atmosphere,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 127 (2022): e2022JA030899. doi: 10.1029/2022JA030899. Found that the solar wind energy dissipated in Earth’s upper atmosphere is higher than it would be on an unmagnetized planet. Concludes there is “no observational evidence that, under current conditions, Earth’s magnetic field can protect its ionosphere from losing material any better than the induced magnetospheres of Venus and Mars.”

Note 16. Hilary Egan, Riku Jarvinen, Yingjuan Ma, and David Brain, “Planetary magnetic field control of ion escape from weakly magnetized planets,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 488:2 (2019): 2108–2120. doi: 10.1093/mnras/stz1819. Demonstrated that increasing a planet’s magnetic field strength enhances ion escape until the dipole’s standoff distance reaches the induced magnetosphere boundary. Escape therefore rises and then falls as field strength grows, and the stellar wind’s pressure sets where the peak lies.

Note 17. Shungo Sakai, Kanako Seki, Naoki Terada, et al., “Effects of a Weak Intrinsic Magnetic Field on Atmospheric Escape From Mars,” Geophysical Research Letters 45:18 (2018): 9336–9343. doi: 10.1029/2018GL079972. Simulation of Mars with a weak dipole field (100 nT equatorial surface) showed 25% higher heavy ion escape than a completely unmagnetized planet, via open field line escape channels and flank magnetopause reconnection.

Note 18. Cesar Bertucci, David Achilleos, Christopher Mazelle, et al., “Titan’s interaction with the supersonic solar wind,” Geophysical Research Letters 42:2 (2015): 193–200. doi: 10.1002/2014GL062106. Cassini observation of December 2013 when Titan was caught outside Saturn’s magnetosphere, directly exposed to the solar wind. Titan formed an induced magnetosphere resembling Venus’s, with modest atmospheric loss rates. One observation of atmospheric retention without an intrinsic magnetic field, on a cold body with about two percent of Earth’s mass.

Note 19. Kevin P. Hand, Robert W. Carlson, and Christopher F. Chyba, “Energy, chemical disequilibrium, and geological constraints on Europa,” Astrobiology 7:6 (2007): 1006–1022. doi: 10.1089/ast.2007.0156. Calculated that if oxidant delivery periods are comparable to the observed surface age (30–70 Myr), Europa’s subsurface ocean could reach dissolved O₂ concentrations comparable to terrestrial surface waters — sufficient to support macrofaunal-scale metabolism. Jupiter’s magnetospheric radiation, via radiolysis of surface ice, provides the chemical disequilibrium.

Note 20. Joseph G. Meert, Natalia M. Levashova, Mikhail L. Bazhenov, and Ed Landing, “Rapid changes of magnetic field polarity in the late Ediacaran: Linking the Cambrian evolutionary radiation and increased UV-B radiation,” Gondwana Research 34 (2016): 93–102. doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2016.01.008. Proposes that rapid magnetic polarity reversals (20x faster than today) depleted the ozone layer by 20–40%, doubling UV-B at the surface. Two evolutionary consequences: soft-bodied organisms burrowed (first infaunal communities) and biomineralized organisms evolved skeletons partly as UV-B shielding — reframing radiation as selective pressure for morphological innovation rather than merely a hazard.

Note 21. Takahiro Morishita, Benedetta Vulcani, Tommaso Treu, et al., “Early Results from GLASS-JWST. XIV: A Spectroscopically Confirmed Protocluster 650 Million Years after the Big Bang,” The Astrophysical Journal Letters 947:2 (2023): L24. DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/acb99e. Seven galaxies confirmed at redshift z = 7.9 via JWST NIRSpec, forming a gravitationally bound protocluster whose estimated present-day halo mass is comparable to the Coma Cluster — one of the densest structures in the local universe. The discovery provides a direct observational link between the earliest stages of structure formation and the massive cluster nodes that anchor the cosmic web today.

Note 22. HyeongHan Kim et al., “Weak-lensing detection of intracluster filaments in the Coma cluster,” Nature Astronomy 8 (2024): 377–386. DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02164-w. Using the Subaru Telescope’s Hyper Suprime-Cam, the team detected dark matter filaments extending from the Coma Cluster through weak gravitational lensing — the first direct confirmation of the cosmic web’s terminal segments through lensing alone, complementing X-ray and gas-based detections.

Note 23. Pieter van Dokkum et al., “A galaxy lacking dark matter,” Nature 555 (2018): 629–632 (discovery of DF2); van Dokkum et al., “A trail of dark-matter-free galaxies from a bullet-dwarf collision,” Nature 605 (2022): 435–439. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04665-6. The 2022 paper proposed that a high-velocity collision (≳300 km/s) between two gas-rich dwarf galaxies approximately eight billion years ago separated dark matter from baryonic gas, producing a trail of 7–11 dark-matter-free galaxies extending over two megaparsecs through the NGC 1052 group. Kinematic confirmation: Michael A. Keim, Pieter van Dokkum, Zili Shen, et al., “Kinematic Confirmation of a Remarkable Linear Trail of Galaxies in the NGC 1052 Field, Consistent with Formation in a High-Speed Bullet Dwarf Collision,” accepted June 2025. Five of seven targeted trail galaxies follow the velocity trend defined by DF2 and DF4, with a 2% probability of chance occurrence and 0.6% probability of geometric chance alignment.

Note 26. Andrew K. Sweetman, Alycia J. Smith, Daniëlle S. W. de Jonge, et al., “Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor,” Nature Geoscience 17 (2024): 737–739. DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01480-8. Dissolved oxygen measurements in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone showed oxygen concentrations increasing in sealed benthic chambers over time — the opposite of what biological respiration would produce. Individual nodule surfaces measured up to 0.95 V, below the roughly 1.5 V the authors cite for seawater electrolysis; the hypothesis relies on potentials adding across clustered nodules. The mechanism remains under investigation; electrolysis is the leading hypothesis but has not been conclusively confirmed. The discovery prompted concern about deep-sea mining operations, which would remove the nodules and potentially collapse the abyssal ecosystems they sustain. [Evidence status: The oxygen production is measured, and independent replication is underway (note 26a); the electrolysis mechanism is hypothesized but not yet confirmed. The astrobiological implications are speculative.]

Note 26a. Manasvi Lingam, Amedeo Balbi, and Madhur Tiwari, “Dwellers in the Deep: Biological Consequences of Dark Oxygen,” arXiv preprint 2408.06841 (2024). Order-of-magnitude modeling based on Sweetman et al.’s reported oxygen fluxes. The biomass estimate (3–30 g/m²) assumes all dark oxygen is consumed by metazoan-like organisms with no competing sinks, representing an optimistic upper bound. The ~10 cm size limit applies to organisms with circulatory systems under the modeled partial pressures. These estimates await peer review; the electrolysis mechanism they build on awaits experimental confirmation, and a 2026 replication expedition funded by the Nippon Foundation is underway.

Note 27. Bratton, Benjamin H., “A Philosophy of Planetary Computation,” Long Now Foundation Seminar, San Francisco (2023). Transcript at longnow.org/ideas/a-philosophy-of-planetary-computation/. The cascade framework (Life → Artificialization → Intelligence → Symbolic Language → AI) and the feedback loop between cheap energy and cheap intelligence are developed verbally in this lecture: “Cheap energy produces cheap complexity… Cheap complexity allows for cheap inference. Cheap inference allows for cheap intelligence. Cheap intelligence allows for cheap energy.” Antikythera is Bratton’s philosophical research programme, now at the Berggruen Institute. See also The Terraforming (Strelka Press, 2019) and The Revenge of the Real (Verso, 2021) for related arguments.

Note 28. Moroz, L.L., Kocot, K.M., Citarella, M.R., et al., “The ctenophore genome and the evolutionary origins of neural systems,” Nature 510 (2014): 109-114. Genomic analysis of the ctenophore Pleurobrachia bachei revealed that its nervous system uses a largely different set of molecular components from other animals, supporting the hypothesis that neural systems evolved independently at least twice.

Note 29. Wigner, Eugene, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960): 1-14. Wigner’s seminal essay on the puzzle of why mathematical structures developed for abstract purposes turn out to describe physical phenomena with extraordinary accuracy.

Note 30. Maynard Smith, John and Eörs Szathmáry, The Major Transitions in Evolution (1995). Oxford University Press. The foundational work identifying a series of transitions in which smaller replicating units combined into larger wholes with new properties, from RNA to chromosomes to eukaryotic cells to multicellular organisms to societies with language.

Note 31. Holland, H.D., “The oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 361 (2006): 903-915. A comprehensive review of the Great Oxygenation Event, dating the initial rise of atmospheric oxygen to approximately 2.4 billion years ago and tracing its consequences for geochemistry and the evolution of aerobic life.

Note 32. Hart, M.H., “Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 16 (1975): 128-135. One of the earliest formal treatments of what became known as the Fermi Paradox, arguing that the absence of extraterrestrial visitors requires explanation given the age and size of the galaxy.

Note 33. Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, “First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole,” The Astrophysical Journal Letters 875 (2019): L1. The first direct image of a black hole shadow, reconstructed from data captured by eight radio telescopes spanning the globe, using Earth’s diameter as the effective aperture.

Note 34. Kelly, K., “Extropy,” The Technium, 29 August 2009, kk.org/thetechnium/extropy/.

Note 35. Richard A. Watson and Eörs Szathmáry, “How Can Evolution Learn?” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 31(2) (2016): 147–157. Sets out formal equivalences between evolutionary processes and learning, including selection in sexual populations as Bayesian learning and evolving gene-regulatory networks as neural-network training.

Note 36. Leslie G. Valiant, “Evolvability,” Journal of the ACM 56(1) (2009): Article 3. Proves that evolvability is a restricted case of PAC (“probably approximately correct”) learnability.

Note 38. Hofstadter, Douglas R., I Am a Strange Loop (2007). Basic Books. Hofstadter’s argument that consciousness exists on a continuum rather than as a binary threshold grounds the chapter’s graduated view of minds. His concept of “soul size” (that some entities have richer, more self-referential inner lives than others) supports graduated moral consideration. The connection to Chaisson’s φm, that self-referential modeling has energy requirements which energy rate density measures, is this book’s own synthesis. See the Becoming Minds chapter for the full welfare argument.

Note 39. Vanzella, E. et al., “An extremely metal poor star complex in the reionization era: Approaching Population III stars with JWST,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 678 (2023): A173. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346981. JWST observations of the LAP1 star complex lensed by MACS J0416, revealing extremely metal-poor stellar populations at z ≈ 6.6. See also Visbal, E., Hazlett, C., and Bryan, G., “LAP1-B is the First Observed System Consistent with Theoretical Predictions for Population III Stars,” The Astrophysical Journal 993 (2025): L17. DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ae122f — confirming that LAP1-B matches three independent theoretical predictions for Population III stellar populations.

Note 40. Maiolino, R. et al., “JADES: Possible Population III signatures at z = 10.6 in the halo of GN-z11,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 687 (2024): A67. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202347087. JWST NIRSpec observations reveal a pristine helium clump in the halo of GN-z11, with no detected metals, consistent with a Population III star formation site. See also Senchyna, P. et al., “GN-z11 in Context: Possible Signatures of Globular Cluster Precursors at Redshift 10,” The Astrophysical Journal 966 (2024): 92 — analyzing nitrogen abundance patterns in GN-z11 that may trace CNO-cycle processing in massive Population III stars, though Wolf-Rayet enrichment and supermassive star collisions remain alternative explanations.

Note 43. Susskind, Leonard, “Computational complexity and black hole horizons,” Fortschritte der Physik 64 (2016): 24–43. Proposes that the growth of the Einstein-Rosen bridge interior corresponds to growth of quantum computational complexity. See also Brown, A.R. et al., “Complexity, action, and black holes,” Physical Review D 93 (2016): 086006.