Implications of the Reduction Principle for Cosmological Natural Selection

Smolin (1992) proposed that the fine-tuning problem for parameters of the Standard Model might be accounted for by a Darwinian process of universe reproduction — Cosmological Natural Selection (CNS) — in which black holes give rise to offspring universes with slightly altered parameters. The laws for variation and inheritance of the parameters are also subject to CNS if variation in transmission laws occurs. This is the strategy introduced by Nei (1967) to understand genetic transmission, through the evolutionary theory of modifier genes, whose methodology is adopted here. When mechanisms of variation themselves vary, they are subject to Feldman’s (1972) evolutionary Reduction Principle that selection favors greater faithfulness of replication. A theorem of Karlin (1982) allows one to generalize this principle beyond biological genetics to the unknown inheritance laws that would operate in CNS. The reduction principle for CNS is illustrated with a general multitype branching process model of universe creation containing competing inheritance laws. The most faithful inheritance law dominates the ensemble of universes. The Reduction Principle thus provides a mechanism to account for high fidelity of inheritance between universes. Moreover, it reveals that natural selection in the presence of variation in inheritance mechanisms has two distinct objects: maximization of both fitness and faithful inheritance. Tradeoffs between fitness and faithfulness open the possibility that evolved fundamental parameters are compromises, and not local optima to maximize universe production, in which case their local non-optimality may point to their involvement in the universe inheritance mechanisms.