Generative Systems

This note is about generative systems across domains.

This concept relates to the notion of Complexity, emergence, self-design, Innovation, Creativity.

This book argues that Darwin got it "fundamentally wrong." Once basic organismal integrity and homeostatic capabilities evolved, evolution could go forward as an "internally driven" process subject only to the "obstructionism" of natural selection. The idea is that emergence leads to innovations and the natural selection is only finetuning and stabilising the effects of innovations.

Reid, Robert G. B. Biological Emergences Evolution by Natural Experiment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.

Evolution has a creative role in emergent phenomena, including symbiosis, epigenetic and developmental influences, and behavioural innovations (e.g., the so-called Baldwin Effect).