Biology
What principles govern all living systems?
Life has been running experiments for 3.8 billion years. The principles that survived are worth understanding.
The Principles
Natural Selection
Variation + Selection + Inheritance = Adaptation
| Component | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Variation | Differences exist |
| Selection | Environment filters what survives |
| Inheritance | Survivors pass on traits |
| Domain | Application |
|---|---|
| Products | Ship variations; market selects |
| Ideas | Memes compete; useful ones spread |
| Skills | Practice creates variation; feedback selects |
The question: What are you varying? What's doing the selecting?
Homeostasis
Living systems maintain stable internal conditions despite external change.
| Mechanism | Example |
|---|---|
| Temperature regulation | Body at 37°C whether it's hot or cold |
| Blood sugar | Insulin/glucagon feedback |
| Organizations | Culture resists disruption |
The question: What are you maintaining stable? At what cost?
Emergence
Simple rules + many agents = complex behavior that no one designed.
| Level | Emerges From |
|---|---|
| Consciousness | Neurons |
| Markets | Individual trades |
| Culture | Individual actions |
| Traffic jams | Individual drivers |
The question: What's emerging from the interactions you're enabling?
Compartmentalization
Boundaries concentrate function. Membranes separate inside from outside.
| Domain | Application |
|---|---|
| Cells | Organelles specialize |
| Organizations | Teams focus on domains |
| Mind | Separation of concerns |
The question: Where do you need boundaries? Where are they too rigid?
Symbiosis
Mutual benefit often beats competition. Cooperation is an evolutionary strategy.
| Type | Relationship |
|---|---|
| Mutualism | Both benefit (gut bacteria) |
| Commensalism | One benefits, other neutral |
| Parasitism | One benefits, other harmed |
The question: What kind of relationship are you in?
Life Cycles
Growth → Maturity → Decay → Renewal
Everything has seasons. Nothing grows forever.
| Stage | Characteristics | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Growth | Expansion, investment, building | Invest aggressively |
| Maturity | Stability, optimization, harvest | Optimize, extract value |
| Decay | Decline, obsolescence | Harvest or transform |
| Renewal | Death and rebirth | Let go, start fresh |
The question: What stage are you in? Are you acting accordingly?
Antifragility
Some systems gain from disorder. Stress makes them stronger.
| Response to Stress | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Breaks | Fragile | Glass |
| Unchanged | Robust | Rock |
| Gets stronger | Antifragile | Muscles, immune system |
The question: Are you building fragile, robust, or antifragile?
The Meta-Principle
Life creates conditions conducive to life. Surviving systems enable other systems to survive.
This is why:
- Sustainable beats extractive
- Ecosystems outperform monocultures
- Regeneration beats optimization
- Death enables renewal