The biosphere is formed by structures and processes that are useful for the continuation of life: we have lungs in order to breathe; eyes with which to see. Darwin’s discovery is that we understand why there are these structures 为什么会有这些结构 by reversing the order of cause and effect between their utility and their existence 翻转在他们的用途和存在之间的因果顺序 : their function (to see, to eat, to breathe, to digest . . . to contribute to life) is not the purpose of these structures 功能并非这些结构(存在)的目的. It is the other way around: living beings survive because these structures are there. We do not love in order to live: we live because we love.
Life is a biochemical process that unfolds across the surface of the Earth and dissipates the abundant “free energy,” or “low entropy,” with which the light of the Sun floods the planet. It is made up of individuals who interact with what surrounds them, formed by structures and processes that are self-regulating, maintaining a dynamic equilibrium that persists over time. But structures and processes are not there so that the organisms may survive and reproduce. It is the other way around: organisms survive and reproduce because these structures have happened to **gradually develop**. They reproduce and populate the Earth because they are functional. 结构和过程不是为了有机体可以生存和繁殖而存在 相反 有机体的生存和繁殖是因为这些结构恰好在逐级发展 生命繁殖并居于地球 因为他们具有功能
The idea goes back at least as far as Empedocles, as Darwin points out in his marvelous book. Aristotle tells us in his Physics how Empedocles had suggested that life was the result of the casual formation of structures due to the normal combination of things. Most of these structures quickly perish, with the exception of those having the characteristics to survive: these are the living organisms.
p148
(This notion of “relative information” is purely physical. It is central in quantum physics: relative information is generated by the interactions that weave the world. Notice that it connects two different things, just as meaning does. But it isn’t enough to understand meaning; the world swarms with correlations, but the vast majority of these do not signify or mean anything. To understand meaning we need something else.
The discovery of biological evolution, on the other hand, has allowed us to build some bridges between concepts that we use when speaking about animate things and concepts that we use for the rest of nature. In particular, it has clarified the biological—and in the final analysis, physical—origin of such notions as utility and relevance.)引自 2. “意义”是什么意思？
表示其中内容是对原文的摘抄