Actually, the propensity toward complexity is completely inherent to our reality, hence the universe is still no longer simple ultra-dense, ultra-hot plasma. That's why the Earth has life, multicellular organisms and so forth rather than the melted rock of the Hadean. The universe is cooling and, up to a point, as things cool down they become more ordered.Hobbes' Choice wrote:The propensity to complexity is not inherent in the general but in the specific cases that we see due to the activity thus produced. I think this is of a different kind of matter concentrations to atoms in space, in which the propensity to coalesce is inherent in gravity and general principles.Greta wrote:One one level I see brains per se as just one more example of nature's tendency for relatively homogeneous material to form areas of concentration as they cool - particlisation. Atoms, gas clouds, stars, planets, galaxies, galactic clusters, cells, multicellular structures, encephalisation, colonies, cities, institutions ... in each case some area of greater concentration starts building up more rapidly than the surrounding environment and in time new properties emerge from the buildup.
The mechanisms are obviously different, but greater order - greater information density - demonstrably results in emergent phenomena, as does the concentration of mass does.