What If Everything Evolved?

I have written about the topic of evolution by natural selection many times in the past. Most recently I suggested a possible solution to the problem of the viability of viruses by using a series of three questions which ultimately lead to the conclusion that viruses must be alive because they have undoubtebly been subjct to evolution by natural selection. This is a thing which can only be said of living things, and cannot be said of things which are not alive. In fact, all living things are subject to evolution by natural selection (as far as we know), and no non-living things are. That fact that non-living things are not subject to evolution by natural selection is a brute fact of the universe, and thus does not need the qualifier (as far as we know). One can argue if it is our words and language that create our universe or simply describe it, but in either case the proposition 'non living things are not subject to evolution by natural selection' obtains.

A few years ago I asked if life could be sustainable on a planet without evolution. In that article I basically attacked the position of a Dr. Drew Smith, a PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado, who had answered a similar Quora question by asking us to consider the factors that enable evolution through natural selection: heritability of characteristics, modification of those, and selective advantage of certain modified characteristics. He argued that those three factors "not merely enable evolution — they make it inescapable. A non-evolving world would have to lack at least one of these three factors." I did not and do not quarrel with Dr. Smith's three factors and his supporting arguments were strong, however they were not bulletproof, and I proceeded to shoot holes in each of them. In the end I think I convinced myself at least that his arguments were not enough to prove that it would be impossible for life to be sustainable on a world without evolution. I also do not think that my counter arguments were strong enough to prove that it would actually be possible. Therefore, in the final analysis I was left exactly where I started, confused and uncertain.

Here I am asking a similar but related question and at the outset I can pretty much guarantee I will be left without a very satisfying answer. So, if you are looking for definitive statements of fact and unchallengeable conclusions, you may as well click away now, lest you end up as disappointed as I surely will be by the time I make there. Fortunately here I am asking an open ended question and one which challenges us to imagine something. When it comes to imagining the impossible I like to think I can hold my own against some of the best and this is one doozy of an imagination challenge. Basically what I am asking to imagine is what a world would look like if everything evolved by natural selection? By everything I am now including inanimate objects, things like rocks, and computers, and cars, t-shirts and shoes, and even the fundamental building blocks of all things (both living and non-living) atoms and subatomic particles. In order to imagine this world we will have to make some rather large changes in how we normally think about stuff. We will not be able to suspend the three factors that enable evolution by natural selection therefore, such a world would require that all things be able to 'reproduce' in a fashion and to 'pass on their characteristics to the next generation'. Also, their must be a mechanism by which those characteristics can be modified, and one by which those modifications can result in an advntage or advantages over other similar or dissimilar things. Definitely such a world would seem to be one that was highly unstable and ever changing. If the fundamental building blocks of all things are constantly changing (fighting or 'survival') against each other with the 'strongest' surviving to pass on their characteristics all things would be constantly changing as a consequence. On the other hand, perhaps stability might be the biggest survival advantage of them all, and things would generally trend towards a state of very little change until such point as there were no longer any changes possible to make and the world reached perfection and became the strongest it could possibly ever be. If one is willing to really expand the imagination you could argue that our universe is a lot like this imagined "all things evolve" world. Beginning from a state of highest possible order, exploding into an ultra high temperature big bang, growing in disorder and chaos, until eventually cooling, slowing disorder, chaos reducing to a point until it either continues ever growing and expanding and cooling until it reaches absolute zero in all space infinity or it collapses back in upon itself in a big crunch. The eventual outcome is ultimately dependent on the exact value of one very critical number, the Hubble constant. Above a certain value we expand forever, below it, collapse and crunch or it could be the reverse of that, I can never remember. Lol!