John O. Campbell was a Canadian scientist and independent researcher who helped to develop the concept of Universal Darwinism.

In 2009. he published his first peer-reviewed journal article, Bayesian Methods and Universal Darwinism.

Bayesian methods since the time of Laplace have been understood by their practitioners as closely aligned to the scientific method. Indeed a recent champion of Bayesian methods, E. T. Jaynes, titled his textbook on the subject Probability Theory: the Logic of Science. Many philosophers of science including Karl Popper and Donald Campbell have interpreted the evolution of Science as a Darwinian process consisting of a 'copy with selective retention' algorithm abstracted from Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. Arguments are presented for an isomorphism between Bayesian Methods and Darwinian processes. Universal Darwinism, as the term has been developed by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore, is the collection of scientific theories which explain the creation and evolution of their subject matter as due to the operation of Darwinian processes. These subject matters span the fields of atomic physics, chemistry, biology and the social sciences. The principle of Maximum Entropy states that systems will evolve to states of highest entropy subject to the constraints of scientific law. This principle may be inverted to provide illumination as to the nature of scientific law. Our best cosmological theories suggest the universe contained much less complexity during the period shortly after the Big Bang than it does at present. The scientific subject matter of atomic physics, chemistry, biology and the social sciences has been created since that time. An explanation is proposed for the existence of this subject matter as due to the evolution of constraints in the form of adaptations imposed on Maximum Entropy. It is argued these adaptations were discovered and instantiated through the operations of a succession of Darwinian processes.

Bayesian Methods, pp. 3-5

In 2010, Campbell extended Dawkins' term "Universal Darwinism" to the evolution of the universe, based on Wojciech Zurek’s 2009 theory of Quantum Darwinism. He wrote...

The Darwinian nature of Wojciech Zurek’s theory of Quantum Darwinism is evaluated against the criteria of a Darwinian process as understood within Universal Darwinism. The characteristics of a Darwinian process are developed including the consequences of accumulated adaptations resulting in adaptive systems operating in accordance with Friston’s free energy principle and employing environmental simulations. Quantum theory, as developed in Zurek’s research program and encapsulated by his theory of Quantum Darwinism is discussed from the view that Zurek’s derivation of the measurement axioms implies that the evolution of a quantum system entangled with environmental entities is determined solely by the nature of the entangled system. There need be no further logical foundation. Quantum Darwinism is found to conform to the Darwinian paradigm in unexpected detail and is thus may be considered a theory within the framework of Universal Darwinism. With the inclusion of Quantum Darwinism within Universal Darwinism and the explanatory power of Darwinian processes extended beyond biology and the social sciences to include the creation and evolution of scientific subject matter within particle physics, atomic physics and chemistry, it is suggested that Universal Darwinism may be considered a candidate ‘Theory of Everything’ as anticipated by David Deutsch.

Quantum Darwinism as a Darwinian process. (2010) arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.0745., pp. 3-5

In his 2011 book Universal Darwinism: The Path of Knowledge, Campbell wrote...

The Universal Darwinism meta-theory contains the numerous scientific theories which employ a Darwinian process to explain the creation and evolution of their subject matter as well as an exposition of the general principles these theories have in common. The ‘universal’ aspect of this theory is justified by the broad scope of subject matter included under its umbrella. The literature contains numerous scientific theories in quantum physics, atomic and molecular physics, cosmology, biology and culture.

This book will make the argument that Universal Darwinism provides a further advance in the unification of scientific understanding; that Universal Darwinism is a means of consolidating a wide swath of seemingly disparate scientific subject matter within a single theoretical paradigm. The forces and interactions of the micro-world are viewed by modern particle physics in terms of information. John Archibald Wheeler, one of the past century’s most influential physicists, liked to say that his career had moved through three phases, from “Everything is particles” to “Everything is fields” to “Everything is information”. The concept of information not only has a central explanatory role within particle physics it is also central to explanations of emergent levels of complex reality such as biology and culture. The increased focus of scientific explanation on information holds promise for a single theory with the ability to unite many branches of science within the same theoretical framework. For the past 60 years a single theory that is able to explain all fundamental interaction in terms of information has been physic’s Holy Grail and is often referred to as the Theory of Everything (TOE). The presumptuous title is due to the hope that given a single theory of the building blocks we would be able to explain all the more complex emergent systems, such as chemistry and life, which arise from them.

Universal Darwinism, pp. 3-5

John Archibald Wheeler did see everything emerging from information with his famous slogan "it from bit."

But Campbell's main source for the idea that the physical world is evolving by natural selection was not Wheeler. It was Lee Smolin's 1997 book Life of the Cosmos.

In his 2015 book, Darwin Does Physics, Campbell wrote...

This brief, marvellous outline provided by science, by which we can understand ourselves and our current reality as the result of knowledge accumulated since the beginning of time, also has remarkable depth. Both the biological and social sciences may be seen within this general context. In these disciplines, evolutionary accumulation of knowledge is accomplished through the operation of Darwinian processes, and the scientific literature is replete with theories which utilize Darwinian processes to explain the creation and evolution of their subject matter. However the biological and social sciences are unfortunately limited, as they seek to explain phenomena which have evolved only on our planet and only within the past three and a half billion years. We may judge that this paradigm fails to have universal scope.

What about the vast scope of phenomena studied by the physical sciences which encompasses all matter, space and time? I am happy to report that at the basis of the physical sciences there are also recent theories which utilize Darwinian processes to explain the evolution of most of these phenomena.

With the union of the social, biological and physical sciences within this single paradigm, an extraordinary scientific vision is developing. It is simple to comprehend as a whole, yet accesses the full depth of scientific details. It explains reality as an information processor that accumulates knowledge, knowledge that is used to transform the past, since the beginning of time, into the present.

Darwin Does Physics, pp. 3-4

Campbell cites Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea

The American philosopher of science Daniel Dennett famously wrote: …

If I could give  a prize to the single best idea anybody ever had, I’d give it to Darwin—ahead of Newton, ahead of Einstein, ahead of everybody else.  Why?  Because Darwin’s idea put together the two biggest worlds, the world of mechanism and material, and physical causes on the one hand (the lifeless world of matter) and the world of meaning, and purpose, and goals.  And …he showed how meaning and purposes could arise out of physical law, out of the workings of ultimately inanimate nature. And that’s just a stunning unification and opens up a tremendous vista for all inquiries, not just for biology, but for the relationship between the second law of thermodynamics and the existence of poetry.

Darwin Does Physics, p. 12

But Dennett does not say that inanimate nature itself includes purpose, simply that biology arises out of physical law, but Dennett does see a relation between poetry and the second law.

In his 2016 article, Universal Darwinism As a Process of Bayesian Inference, Campbell wrote...

Many of the mathematical frameworks describing natural selection are equivalent to Bayes' Theorem, also known as Bayesian updating. By definition, a process of Bayesian Inference is one which involves a Bayesian update, so we may conclude that these frameworks describe natural selection as a process of Bayesian inference. Thus, natural selection serves as a counter example to a widely-held interpretation that restricts Bayesian Inference to human mental processes (including the endeavors of statisticians). As Bayesian inference can always be cast in terms of (variational) free energy minimization, natural selection can be viewed as comprising two components: a generative model of an experiment" in the external wood environment, and the results of that "experiment" or the "surprise" entailed by predicted and actual outcomes of the "experiment." Minimization of free energy impfies that the implicit measure of •surprise" experienced serves to update the generative model in a Bayesian manner. This description closely accords with the mechanisms of generafized Darwinian process proposed both by Dawkins, in terms of replicators and vehicles, and Campbell, in terms of inferential systems. Bayesian inference is an algorithm for the accumulation of evldenoe-based knowledge. This algorithm is now seen to operate over a wide range of evolutionary processes, including natural selection, the evolution of mental models and cultural evolutionary processes, notably including science itself. The vanational principle of free energy minimization may thus serve as a unifying mathematical framework for universal Darwinism, the study of evolutionary processes operating throughout nature.

"Universal Darwinism as a process of Bayesian inference." Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 10, 49.

In Campbell's 2017 book Einstein's Enlightenment, he hopes to found a new cosmic religion, writing...

This book proposes a cosmic religion that is in harmony with science. It is an audacious project that should raise a red flag with any skeptical reader. To mitigate this skepticism I widely cite scientific literature. I believe the views presented here are well supported by the evidence and by our current state of scientific understanding.

I do not take credit for originating this revelation. Rather, it is boldly proclaimed in the writings of Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), perhaps the greatest scientific genius who has ever lived. This book is an attempt to develop the vision that he so clearly stated.

It is baffling that almost no one has seemed willing to take Einstein’s spiritual vision of science seriously. He understood that science is our best guide to understanding nature and further that nature is equivalent to God.  Thus, science may provide us with a glimpse into the mind of God.

Even inspirational contemporary scientists, such as Carl Sagan (1934-1996), failed to grasp Einstein’s message. A short quote from Einstein’s writing indicates the depth of his spiritual vision (1):

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims at the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.

Clearly Einstein’s vision of science is deeply spiritual. He sees it as a means of liberation from our individual, mortal selves and of uniting ourselves instead with the timeless wonder of the cosmos. Although his God is nature itself and not an anthropomorphic God, created in our own image, he views God and nature as manifesting a ‘marvelous order’ that reveal characteristics of mind as well as materialism.

A second quote may serve to further illuminate his spiritual view (2):

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the Mysterious — the knowledge of the existence of something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty… I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with the awareness of — and glimpse into — the marvelous construction of the existing world together with the steadfast determination to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. This is the basics of cosmic religiosity, and it appears to me that the most important function of art and science is to awaken this feeling among the receptive and keep it alive.

God or nature, as understood by science manifests ‘the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty’. Although we may only glimpse this eternal realm, Einstein strove to comprehend it as fully as possible and claimed that this is the very purpose of science.

Sagan, in describing Einstein’s revelation characterizes it as merely a belief in a few cold, abstract laws of nature.

...a quite different vision of God, one proposed by Baruch Spinoza and by Albert Einstein…  But by God they meant something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled God.

In pursuing my goal some new areas of science, developed since Einstein’s passing, appear to hold promise in making his vision more explicit. These include information theory, Bayesian inference and universal Darwinism. Over the years, I have attempted to unite these three bodies of scientific understanding into the candidate version of Einstein’s Enlightenment presented here.

Einstein's Enlightenment, pp.1-2

Campbell's 2019 paper, with British neuroscientist and active inference theorist Karl Friston marked the beginning of a collaboration between Campbell and Friston.

Campbell's 2021 book, The Knowing Universe further builds on the work of Friston and his Free Energy Principle.

A largely unheralded scientific revolution is sweeping through the research community. One aspect of this revolution is a growing body of research centred on Karl Friston's notions of the Bayesian Brain and the Free Energy Principle and based on this work, Friston is rated the most influential neuroscientist of our day. His research reveals that the computation of Bayesian inferences, or the solving of mathematical relationships between hypotheses and evidence, is the brain's main problem-solving mechanism. As documented in the flood of research papers currently published at a rate of over one thousand a year referring to the free energy principle, it appears the brain uses Bayesian inference over and over again to solve the many puzzles confronting it.

The Knowing Universe, p.13

In the The Knowing Universe, Campbell gives us the early history of the development of Universal Darwinism as applied to the evolution go the universe.

I've always had a passion for Universal scientific ideas, applying to almost everything, providing a cosmic perspective...as a college student during the early 1970s, I immersed myself in Darwin's theory of natural selection, and its powerful and elegant logic still forms the basis of my scientific worldview. It is a wonderous theory of how all living things have come to exist, a scientific understanding that tells a compelling story. And I soon became convinced that this theory could generalize into a theory of everything.  For a while, my college career consisted of rewriting the same essay, interpreting various subject matters through the same lens to confirm, at least to myself, the universal explanatory potential of Darwinian theory.   Disappointingly, my idiosyncratic musings found little explicit support in the scientific literature; at the time, there weren't any well-developed Darwinian theories outside of biology. But all that was about to change. Richard Dawkins coined the term universal Darwinism in a 1976 paper, where he used it to argue that any extra-terrestrial life must evolve through natural selection (1). Unfortunately, this paper did not envision Darwinian processes operating beyond biology either on or off planet earth. But his groundbreaking book of the same year, The Selfish Gene, now rated as the most influential science book of all time (2), contained the speculation that cultural evolution might be a Darwinian process. It might employ a new replicator he named a meme - similar to genes in biological evolution. This speculation ignited the school of universal Darwinism, perhaps best described in Susan Blackmore's 1999 book The Meme Machine. But the 1990s extended Darwinian concepts beyond biology to many other fields in addition to culture. The prominent physicist, Lee Smolin, published a 1992 paper, "Does the Universe Evolve," in which he proposed a theory of evolutionary universes he calls cosmological natural selection. In 1995 Daniel Dennett's book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, pointed to Dawkins' and Smolin's work and outlined Darwinian evolution as a universal evolutionary force.

The Knowing Universe, pp.5

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