Beyond Biology
Kauffman doesn't stop with biology. He goes on to claim the same dynamics that govern biological evolution also govern social and technological evolution. Organisms and human organizations both evolve and coevolve on rugged, constantly changing fitness landscapes subject to conflicting constraints:
Organisms, artifacts, and organizations, when complex, all face conflicting constraints. So it can be no surprise if attempts to evolve toward good compromise solutions and designs must seek peaks on rugged landscapes.[15]
[15] Kauffman, 246.
The space of possibilities for most human choices in the presence of conflicting constraints is vast. This means human agents have to search “more or less blindly.”[16] The only practical thing ...
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