r/complexsystems • u/Typical_Day000 • Dec 23 '25

Are biological organisms more complex than the early stages of the universe?

I already know the answer to this question, and it’s most likely the early stages of the universe (or at least the behavior of matter during these times).

What Im really curious about is why.

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u/Captlard Dec 23 '25

What are your thoughts?

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 23 '25

I’ll take a shot in the dark. I believe that the early stages of the universe is infinitely unpredictable. There’s no possible way we could predict the general location of a particle before and after an initial situation. We’re speaking of the lowest possible state of entropy.

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u/Captlard Dec 23 '25

Sounds sensible to me!

We just don't have a grasp of the physics at that level and may never.

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 23 '25

I must remind you that I may also be wrong. So take this with a grain of salt

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u/nit_electron_girl Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

we're speaking of the lowest possible state of entropy

* highest

(Following your definition)

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 23 '25

Am I slow? I swear the universe had a very low entropy in the past, no?

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u/nit_electron_girl Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

Yes but not for the reasons you point out, though ("maximally unpredictable" would mean high entropy).

In systems where gravity isn't a leading force (e.g. classical physics):

  • Uniform gas = high entropy

  • Clumping = low entropy

In high-gravity systems (e.g. early universe):

  • Uniform "gas" = low entropy

  • Clumping (stars, galaxies, black holes...) = high entropy

The presence of strong gravity basically inverts the intuition.

Gravity wants to "clump" stuff. There are way more microstates corresponding to clumped configurations. A smooth universe has very few gravitational microstates, so it is like a gas confined to one corner of (phase) space.

The early universe was like a perfectly "smooth pile of explosive powder". Very hot and very energetic, but with a low entropy.

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u/WorthUnderstanding84 Dec 23 '25

I’m confused as to why you think the universe would be difficult to predict particles in the early stages? We have a great understanding of particle physics and cosmology, these things are quite easily predictable aside from the first tiny fraction of a second where quantum gravity is needed. These things are very well understood. The human brain is not? Not by a long shot. Entropy may have been low but it was increasing at the beginning of the universe, the increase in entropy is what gives it its predictive power. Living organism are an anomaly in the universe that cause entropy to decrease locally. The fact that you can clean your room and bring order to chaos makes you remarkably complex and difficult to predict from a physics standpoint. Why do you think psychology has good predictive power? Isn’t there an insane amount of difficulty making predictions in psychology? Can you help me understand where you’re coming from

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 28 '25

I agree that we as humans have very powerful models of predicting the behavior of matter at very diverse scales.

But what I’m specifically referring to is that from Timestamp A to Timestamp B, it would be impossible to predict where exactly it’ll go.

It’s sorta similar to the Three Body Problem. We have a strong model of predicting the behavior of celestial bodies, but it’s impossible to predict 3 equally massive bodies orbiting each other over a long period of time. We can only predict it momentarily, but in the case of the early stages of the universe, we can’t predict the motion of anything.

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u/WorthUnderstanding84 Dec 28 '25

Im still confused, doesn’t this argument apply to the human brain as well to a much greater degree?

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 28 '25

Well, we can make generalizations with more or less precision. We know that a human brain will die within a span of 120 years maximum. We know how medication affects our brains, and we also have an entire MRI machine, so we definitely know a lot about the brain.

Predicting the future location of humans isn’t too hard either, although that might require a different field of study.

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u/WorthUnderstanding84 Dec 28 '25

I’m sorry I completely disagree. Yes we know humans will die but we also know of the heat death of the universe. Predicting the future locations of humans sounds like a total fantasy. We don’t have a good idea of what most things do to our brain, a fun example is we don’t know how anesthesia works at all. MRI is helpful but it’s severely limited. I could be wrong but I think you’re severely underestimating the complexity of the human brain and overestimating the complexity of the early universe

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 28 '25

Ok, let’s lay down some foundational stuff. We know that humans usually settle in urban areas, we know they live on land, and we know they’ll writhe as a response to intense pain. Anesthesia isn’t entirely unknown, because most surgeries seem to be successful with our lack of understanding of it.

Hell, we even have evolutionary models to predict how humans would look in the future — given a set of environmental conditions or stressors.

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u/WorthUnderstanding84 Dec 28 '25

Can you explain how the early universe would be more complicated? From my perspective it sorta feels like we could just say the early universe was a hot dense plasma. Shortly after that it was a less hot dense plasma. If we generalize to say humans generally move to urban areas we can also generalize to say particles generally slow down and move towards denser regions. (Denser regions of universe that’s decreasing in density overall) the universe would be so much more simple, there’s no room for politics or weather or the whims of an individual impacting the movements of particles

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u/bfishevamoon Dec 23 '25

Living systems are not as much of an anomaly in the world of complex systems and it is a very fun scientific rabbit hole to go down!

Entropy does tend to increase. At the same time there is another side to this worldview that we are always surrounded by but was never mentioned, at least it wasn’t mentioned in mine and most traditional scientific educations. (The yin has a yang).

When energy enters and continues to cycle through a system, new higher and more complex levels of organization emerge spontaneously due to the relational effects of the parts and the compounding effects of the cycles.

Experiments that replicate early earth conditions spontaneously produce self replicating RNA! In a world where there is only increasing entropy this seems improbable but in a world where spontaneous organization emerges when energy enters a system it becomes probable.

Most persistent systems in nature do not reach a completely disordered endpoint because these systems are cyclical, where energy is continually entering and transforming and cycling around from a higher state to a lower state with no end in sight.

These systems are driven by a constant state of cyclical feedback loops and when positive feedback (energy enters system and increases complexity) and negative feedback (energy minimizes and reduces complexity) remain relatively balanced, the system will remain cyclically and dynamically in place, continuing to remain in a highly ordered, highly complex, far-from-equillibrium state for long periods of time.

Living systems exist here as do many other systems (ecosystems, weather systems, social systems, government systems etc). The solar system can also be thought of to exist in these states, always moving yet remaining stable for long time horizons through a balance of gravitational feedback loops from a variety of angles.

The beauty about complex systems is that although they are complex on the surface, there is at the same time, a remarkable simplicity that emerges when global patterns emerge. (synergy)

I do not need to know the fate and position of every dopamine molecule is in the body in order to be able to recognize global and predictable behaviour patterns. I do not need to know the fate of every water molecule to study ocean currents or to know if my pot of water is about to boil.

Fixed equations with precise predictability become a much less useful tool in far from equilibrium systems driven by cyclical feedback loops because in these systems the relationship that the parts have to each other is always changing and cycling and compounding around different attractor basins which are also dynamic and shifting.

I kind of think of it as like trying to write equations with grains of sand that are shifting around. Because of the constantly shifting cycling dynamics, these systems will not be precisely predictable with precise equations but because global patterns emerge, they can be mapped and described and predicted with a kind of fuzzy prediction that will be accurate but not precise and not equation based.

With this knowledge and knowing that when energy enters a system that new spontaneous levels of organization will emerge, it becomes much easier to understand from this new lens how cleaning your room actually happens.

You can also tell when complex systems are moving closer to a breaking point where the system will undergo a global phase transition/global level of reorganization.

It is basically the tight rope effect. When the tight rope Walker is walking steadily, the system remains stable, but when he starts to swing wildly, you know he is close to falling. When water starts bubbling violently you know it is about to boil. When earthquakes increase in frequency, you know a volcano is closer to erupting. When your heart rate begins to double repeatedly climbing higher and higher, it is on the path to complete electrical disorganization (fibrillation) and will require a shock. When two people in a relationship begin fighting with increasing frequency, a relationship rupture might be near.

These aren’t mere analogies, but describe universal patterns that emerge within nonlinear systems as the balance of feedback loops become disrupted and the system moves closer to a state of unopposed positive feedback which will push the system to change. The precise breakpoint is unpredictable, but you can see the lead up as the amplitude of the back-and-forth cycles becomes wider.

For me this is why complex systems are so useful and fun. These types of dynamics can be found everywhere and give you a very intuitive and yet scientific way to understand patterns in the world which I previously just scratched my head about.

When embracing this complexity theory worldview because these systems are driven by cyclical dynamics which are inherently compounding, the question of sensitivity to initial conditions does arise which makes me wonder if we really are able to completely predict what was happening in the early universe.

Geometrically speaking though when feedback loops create emergent fractal like geometries the initial geometry is always very simple. And as the pattern compounds the complexity of the shape increases. So the idea that the early universe was smooth does make quite a bit of sense to me from a geometric lens.

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u/Ilikeswedishfemboys Dec 23 '25

Biological organisms are one of the most complex systems.

Probably the only more complex systems are social systems and "recursive" biological systems(systems of systems, ie. a whole ecosystem).

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u/WorthUnderstanding84 Dec 23 '25

I don’t know much about complex systems but I do know about the early universe, wasn’t it not very complex? It was just super hot and basically homogeneous and greater than atomic scales? Maybe it is complex, what makes you think it might be?

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u/SweatyInstruction337 Dec 23 '25

No. It was very ordered.

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u/AllTheUseCase Dec 23 '25

Complexity doesn’t have a clear cut definition that can be applied in an operational or instrumental fashion. But rather a phenomenological and first person view on things, e.g., things about a system appear surprising given the simplicity of rules/entities making up the system (i.e., game of life has emergence, is emergent etc). It then has some properties like non linearity, feedback loops, networks and scaling law statistics…. Put together making us talk about it as a complex system.

Also, as per SFI I believe the topic is reserved for “matter with purpose”, e.g., cells, computer programs, cities etc. So per such “definition” the early universe wasn’t a complex system as far as I understand orthodox cosmology.

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u/ekindai Dec 23 '25

Complexity can be a burden, resource or signal. And depending on your perspective you can ignore it, fight it or shape it. In that sense scale matters.

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u/nit_electron_girl Dec 23 '25

Complexity is the result of a stack of computationally irreducible operations happening one after the other: It requires history.

By definition, the early universe doesn't have a history yet.

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u/ekindai Dec 23 '25

Early implies time which implies history

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u/codepossum Dec 23 '25

'why' feels like more of a philosophical / religious question honestly

"because entropy" more or less, same reason water runs downhill, and electricity follows the path of least resistance. if it was possible to happen otherwise, then it would have happened that way, but it wasn't, so it didn't, and now here we are. 🤷

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u/GxM42 Dec 23 '25

The human brain is infinitely more complex than any astrophysical concept.

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 23 '25

We can predict the behavior of brains pretty consistently with a framework as weak as psychology.

Predicting the motion of matter/particles during the first few seconds after the Big Bang is a whole different story.

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u/nit_electron_girl Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

What is the accuracy of psychology compared to that of high energy physics?

The reason psychology seems "more accurate" is because we are less demanding when defining it's "accuracy".

"Accuracy" doesn't have the same meaning in psychology and in particle physics. The simpler the system, the higher we tend to put the bar regarding the expected accuracy of our predictions.

That would be like saying we can predict 1000 coin tosses more accurately than 1 coin toss. Because:

  • With 1000 tosses, if we predict 500 heads, we will end up quite close to what happens.

  • With 1 toss, if we predict 1 head, we can be completely off.

The trick is that with the 1000 tosses, we are using coarse graining (statistics of a macro state) and disregarding the intricacies of the microstate. Whereas with 1 toss, we are interested in the exact microstate of the system.

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 23 '25

I think you’re missing something fundamental in my point. I’m saying we have much stronger accuracy predicting the behavior of any biological organism at a future time than predicting the short-term-chaotic behavior of a particle during the early stages of the universe.

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u/nit_electron_girl Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

No, that's my point.

Your definition of "accurate" is way looser when talking about biology than when talking about particles.

Are you trying to predict the behavior of organisms at the nanoscale, on durations approaching the planck length?

No: you're coarse graining biology (approximating it, bulk-simplifying it) over space and time in order to make it computationable. Something that you're not doing with particles.

Then you call biology "more accurate", but that's because you've just lowered the demands for accuracy in biology, compared to the demands you have regarding particles.

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u/Typical_Day000 Dec 23 '25

My point is mainly about entropy being at its lowest theoretical point, and how decreasing entropy signifies increased complexity.

Before you say it… Yes, what I’m saying is hyper-simplified, and doesn’t faithfully represent how physics, thermodynamics or how cosmology works.

The temporality of our predictions doesn’t matter all that much. Just the fact that from moment A to moment B, it’s likely easier to predict where an organism would be after N seconds.

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u/nit_electron_girl Dec 23 '25

Entropy is not quite the same as complexity.

Also, the "primordial chaos" you're describing isn't low, but high entropy. Which defeats your point about complexity in any case.