The fundamental concept to the probability of the universe is that the probability of the state vector of the universe is independent of statistical mechanics and further it goes up and down through time. The probability of the universe is different than entropy, and has no association with it except that it is an alternative measure of the probability of the state of things around us. Entropy refers to the amount of usable energy in the environment, while the probability of the state vector refers to the actual physical probability of this environment existing. This theory was first thought of in February of 1991, and incomplete forms of it have surfaced through the years, the closest syntactically was the publication of the book “Climbing mount improbable” by Richard Dawkins in 1996. Dawkins does not draw the connection between organism improbability and the probability of the universe itself, but in the most recent issue of Natural History, November 2005 he draws forth his arguments for the probability of organisms having their existing DNA.

Dawkins cites his own source for the origination of the idea that organisms are moving further out on the probability tree in the article: “Paraphrasing the twentieth-century population geneticist Ronald A Fisher, natural selection is a mechanism for generating improbability on an enormous scale.” [1]

Ronald A Fisher is considered by many to be the father of modern statistics, introducing the methodology of analysis of variance within the framework of genetic studies. Fisher was intent on understanding the theory of evolution from a statistical frame of analysis. He went on to study a slew of experimental results from crop studies and came up with a number of the fundamental tools now used by statisticians to perform statistical analysis.

His premises were that random mutations happened to the genome of organisms, and that sexual reproduction mixed these mutations from the parent hosts. From this he built an edifice of statistical analysis on which decisions on crops and animal husbandry could be decided. He studied the minimum population sizes required to maintain genetic fitness to keep genetic variability required for long term population survival. He was the world’s first and preeminent expert on genetic studies and statistics. His conclusion was that natural selection created improbability, improbability of the genome of the organism.

Now we can ask the necessary question: Was he referring to the improbability of the living organism as a collection of usable energy, fighting against the second law of thermodynamics through its metabolism?

No- he was not. The living organism does participate in the gathering of usable energy through its life cycle, but he was not claiming that living organisms became more and more improbable through time because of their metabolic pathways. This would imply that organisms were becoming hotter and hotter, like inverse refrigerator units, which is absurd. The collecting of usable energy with regards to entropy is a vital field of study, but is independent of the study of the improbability of the organism itself existing.

So we must ask- what is the probability of an organism existing? How can we ascertain this probability, or make an estimate as to its value? What does it mean?

Dawkins expresses it succinctly in his Natural History essay: “nonrandom survival of randomly varying hereditary instructions for building embryos. Yet, given the opportunities afforded by deep time, this simple little algorithm generates prodigies of complexity, elegance, and diversity of apparent design.” [1]

Random variations in the instructions for building an organism make it more improbable. Thus, the deterministic and algorithmic changes to an organisms DNA, such as the copying repetition in Huntington’s disease, do not contribute to the improbability of the organism. Systematic and programmed DNA changes, which are known to occur as DNA is copied, are not probabilistic events. Such changes would be equivalent to any other deterministic unfolding of a manifold or mathematical process.

The random changes which occur to an organisms DNA do contribute to the improbability of its existing in a certain state. Copy errors which are due to nondeterministic involvement of foreign pathogens, single point mutations in the DNA strand, and the random crossover points of sexual recombination all contribute to improbability of the DNA, and hence to the organism as a whole constructed from this DNA sequence. This can be stated precisely by assigning probabilities to each type of event, and then analyzing the probability that a specific DNA strand could come into existence.

Note that many DNA sequences have multiple approaches to reaching a specific sequence. For example, a series could be copied, and then part of it accidentally deleted which would yield the same DNA sequence as a few random insertions.

In the human being, there are approximately 3 billion nucleotide pairs, which have been sequenced in the human genome project [2]. There are also roughly 6 billion humans living on the planet at this point in time. Most of the humans share vast tracts of the 3 billion nucleotide pairs, so they can not be considered independent from each other. Nor within a single individual can the billions of nucleotide pairs be considered independent, much of the DNA code consists of unused copies of other parts of the genetic code or as redundant data. So let us assume that for a human there are 1 billion unique nucleotide pairs, and there are four unique “letters” to the code. Thus, a rough estimation would be 1 in 4 raised to the power of 1 billion for the human genetic code to exist as it is now.

If we add to this the myriad other organisms which inhabit our planet, we can see we live in a very improbable place indeed. Further, it can be seen that each random mutation to the genetic code which is preserved has a chance of making the genetic code even more improbable. Some of the changes will make it more probable, such as a massive deletion of a section of code, and some will make it less probable, such as single point mutations which are preserved.

The probability of the DNA of organisms changes through time, becoming less and less probable as more and more mutations are preserved in the genetic code. So we can ask: why are more and more mutations being preserved in the genetic code? Why doesn’t the random walk of changes every once in a while crop a huge amount of information from the genetic code, thus resetting the organisms improbability?

The answer is natural selection. Many of the specific random mutations are actually favorable to the organisms survival. The creation of the random mutations is entirely nondeterministic, but the filtering mechanism of survival is largely deterministic. Variability in survival preserve those changes which improve the fitness of the organism. The effect of this is that organisms, through the process of deep time, move further and further out on the probability of their possibly existing at all.

The universe as a whole moves into a more improbable state through the process of random mutation and natural selection. Natural selection functions as a ratchet, increasing the improbability of the living forms on the planet.

Dawkins expresses this as: “The battle that we biologists face, in our struggle to convince the public and their elected representatives that evolution is a fact, amounts to the battle to convey to them the power of Darwin’s ratchet- the blind watchmaker- to propel lineages up the gentle slopes of Mount Improbable.” [1]

This movement towards higher improbability has nothing to do with the distribution of energy associated with statistical mechanics. It is tied to the underlying structure of the propagation of living forms on our planet, and the fact that this continuation of the living form allows for the preserving of nondeterministic events.

This is a simplification, a useful one, but a simplification of the probability of the planet existing as it does now. To examine this on a high level, let us perform a thought experiment.

First, let us imagine the tree of life, not of the organisms which have existed and do exist, but the tree of life of all possible organisms which could exist, given possible embryonic development conditions and the span of environments available on earth. The living forms that did and do live would be a small part of this larger tree of all possible organisms. This huge tree of organisms would in turn be a small subset of all possible genetic variability. The mammoth tree of all genetic variability would include every single DNA sequence which could exist, and which most would not code for an organism which could even make it past the zygote stage.

The very base of this mammoth tree, where the smaller DNA codes reside would be the most probable forms which could exist. Those living organisms which did reside on the earth in earlier years exist in this part of the genetic tree space. There will be many parts of even this early tree which code for viable organisms and which have not been explored by our planet during the evolution of living things. As time passes, some of the existing species move further down on the tree, to those organisms which are less probable, but more effective at competing for the limited resources of our planet.

At this stage there are a larger number of viable organisms which either were not explored, IE the DNA never randomly mutated to create the organism, or that were explored but do to external happenings unrelated to genetic fitness did not survive. Thus, the exigencies of living on the planet introduce another layer to the computation of the probability of the organisms existing as they do now; the random events of population distribution and species dispersal contributes to the specific trajectory on which our planet moved through the probability space of viable organisms.

However, it can be seen that there are a large number of unexplored spaces on this massive tree which are viable, alternative physical realities where organisms live and breath completely differently than our own. Further, these alternative realities are also highly improbable, just as our own is. The alternative existence of these other living species shows that being improbable does not mean impossible- it merely means alternative. That is to say, there are billions of alternative worlds which have highly improbable organisms running around in them, which does not imply any special quality to our own existence. The universe we live in is merely the one in which we happen to have landed in.

However, we live in a highly improbable universe, which in general way is moving towards greater and greater improbability.


1 Richard Dawkins -Natural History November 2005 pp 35-37

2 Marion L. Carroll and Jay Ciaffa The Human Genome Project:
A Scientific and Ethical Overview Action bioscience August 2003

3 U.S Census Bureau World Population Information


To read the initial explanation of the probability of the universe, turn here:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1020


The other sources can be found here:

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/mas..._feature1.html

http://www.actionbioscience.org/genomic/carroll_ciaffa.html

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html