Complex systems can originate from simple environments. If you're mathematically inclined, I invite you to read Wolfram's book "A New Kind of Science", it does a great job of showing processes like this, for example with cellular automata. The key take-away is that complexity isn't necessarily the product of an even more complex birthing mechanism, but that complexity can and does frequently arise from simplicity, a notion most programmers should be familiar with as well.
> How do systems with interdependent processes and parts get produced by a process that seems to proceed stepwise?
Slowly, and in very small steps. Not every step produces a "useful" change, either: most mutations are fatal, the rest is by and large neutral.
The initial biosphere was relatively simple, but after hundreds of millions of years, the system has grown huge and complex.
You can visualize evolution by imagining a search space, being explored by a myriad of different configurations (of organisms or machines). Configurations that survive, survive. The others are filtered out. Surviving configurations get to explore more of that search space and the process repeats. Over time, this leads to some pretty neat architectural advances (but any biochemist will agree there's a lot of horrible, unfixable spaghetti code in there as well).
We only get the impression of very high complexity and lots of interdependent processes because we look at a very mature ecosystem. Things would be easier to grasp if we were restricted to looking at very early microbes. The principles are the same, though.
> How do systems with interdependent processes and parts get produced by a process that seems to proceed stepwise?
Slowly, and in very small steps. Not every step produces a "useful" change, either: most mutations are fatal, the rest is by and large neutral.
The initial biosphere was relatively simple, but after hundreds of millions of years, the system has grown huge and complex.
You can visualize evolution by imagining a search space, being explored by a myriad of different configurations (of organisms or machines). Configurations that survive, survive. The others are filtered out. Surviving configurations get to explore more of that search space and the process repeats. Over time, this leads to some pretty neat architectural advances (but any biochemist will agree there's a lot of horrible, unfixable spaghetti code in there as well).
We only get the impression of very high complexity and lots of interdependent processes because we look at a very mature ecosystem. Things would be easier to grasp if we were restricted to looking at very early microbes. The principles are the same, though.