Equation 7 · Physics Optimizes, Evolution Satisfices: Two Kinds of Perfection
What does this equation mean?
Read the formula alongside the article passage below. Each part has a deeper page with its role in the equation, the supporting passage and nearby citations.
This mathematical expression combines the displayed quantities; its precise role follows from the surrounding article text. Read the equation part by part below; each part has a contextual explanation and a link to its mathematical background.
Read it piece by piece
Symbol W
W is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
How to interpret it
Read this expression with the definitions, units, and assumptions supplied by the article.
What the article says around this equation
a new position built only from the previous position and the local slope of fitness W at that exact point, with no access to the global shape of the landscape and no way to undo once it is fixed. In optimization-theory terms, the first rule is global by construction; the second is a greedy local rule that can only report the best it found from where it started. Physics gets to run the first kind of rule because a photon and a planet have no history to answer for. Selection is stuck running the second, forever, because every genome is a record of every place it has already been.
For background, read the article’s source list.
Return to Physics Optimizes, Evolution Satisfices: Two Kinds of Perfection