Hackworth , 22 days ago

Plants with more flexible and responsive genetic systems were better able to adapt to changing environments and thus more likely to survive and reproduce, so yeah. However, the basic building blocks of these systems - DNA replication, gene expression, and the fundamental biological processes arose from simpler chemical and physical interactions that were likely governed by principles of self-assembly and thermodynamics. The primary drivers are different at different levels of abstraction and complexity, and there’s dynamic interaction across levels.

Thermodynamics -> Natural Selection -> Responsive (Epi)Genetics -> Memetics -> Metamemetics (probably?)

We “boil things down” to Natural Selection or Thermodynamics as is convenient for communication, but the higher levels affect the lower as well. So we can’t really reduce them like that without losing important information.