Abstract
The theory of natural selection arose in response to the paradox of how organisms accumulate adaptive change despite that traits acquired over a lifetime are eliminated at the end of each generation. Darwin’s population-level explanation (acquired traits are discarded, but inherited traits are retained, and inherited traits that enhance fitness are selected) successfully explains how species evolve. However, in some domains that exhibit cumulative, adaptive change—e.g., cultural evolution, and primitive forms of life—acquired traits are not always extinguished at the end of a generation; therefore, the paradox that Darwin’s theory was designed to solve does not exist. Lack of transmission of acquired traits stems from the sequestering of germ cells from developmental change, which in turn requires a self-assembly code that is used in two distinct ways: (i) actively interpreted during development to generate a soma, and (ii) passively copied without interpretation during reproduction to generate germ cells. Early life and cultural evolution do not involve a self-assembly code used in these two distinct ways. We suggest that cumulative, adaptive change in these domains is due to a lower-fidelity evolutionary process, and model how it could work using Reflexively Autocatalytic and Foodset-generated networks. We refer to this more primitive evolutionary process as Self-Other Reorganisation (SOR) because it involves internal self-organising and self-maintaining processes within entities, as well as interaction between entities. SOR encompasses learning but in general operates across groups. We discuss the relationship between SOR and Lamarckism, and illustrate a special case of SOR without variation.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
(1) clarified a number of issues that were either not explained, or not explained clearly, in the original draft. (2) adds a few more minor clarifications. (3) added a short note on the title page. (4) clarified the rationale and framework. (6) made minor changes to the title and content.
4 Conceptual closure is the focus of another paper [27].
11 We do not use the term ‘replicator’ here since it is often assumed that replicator evolution necessarily involves inheritance of germ-line material.
12 Note that communal exchange is not necessarily beneficial to the recipient. Transmission of useful plasmids through horizontal exchange among bacteria or protists may be beneficial, but transmission of viruses may be damaging. Similarly, transmission of useful technologies may be beneficial to the recipient, but transmission of misinformation may be harmful.
