Main conjecture: encoding macro‑patterns within micro‑components induces tensions driving evolutionary transitions

Determine whether encoding macro‑scale environmental or organismal patterns within micro‑scale biological components inherently generates computational inconsistencies between what is encodable at a given evolutionary stage and what is realizable in the environment, and show that resolving these inconsistencies via evolutionary transitions expands the accessible problem‑space while creating new tensions in the enlarged space.

Background

The paper frames organisms as hierarchical dynamical systems in which macro‑scale regularities can become encoded within micro‑scale components, creating self‑referential tangled information hierarchies. Within this view, the authors posit that such encoding yields computational inconsistencies between current encodings and environmental possibilities.

They conjecture that evolutionary transitions function as resolutions to these tensions by expanding the problem‑space (i.e., introducing new encodings or codes of life), though these expansions simultaneously introduce new tensions, leading to continuing open‑ended evolution.