Evolution - Revision history

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 *[[Evolution]] and [[Disruption]] are the ying and yang of the process of change in any ecosystem. In the [[General Theory of Living Systems]] the case is made that an identity ecosystem has all of the characteristics of living ecosystems. in the [[General Theory of Thinking Systems]] the case is made that non-organic beings also evolve.
-*All evolutionary change occurs within a living ecosystem. Each change must improve the success of the species in the exiting ecosystem. [[Disruption]]s do occur, but even they must succeed in the existing ecosystem, even as they change it.
+* Over the past 50,000 years humans have evolved from an insignificant ape, to being the rulers of the planet.<ref>Yuval Harari, ''AI and Human Evolution'', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki5hosohNtQ</ref>
 *Amara's law<ref>Roy Amara, Wikipedia 1972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Amara</ref> tells us that we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. Since in the long run we are all dead (including all of the known enterprises), the short run is where we have the most opportunity to improve our odds of success, as well as the place where mistaken judgement will result in no impact on the evolving ecosystem.

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 * It would seem that one of the high goals of any [[Identity Ecosystem]] is stability; that is what computer programers seem to require. Yet the real-world is not stable over any long period of time, and so there is no reason to suspect that the digital world will be either.  This wiki page is about handling the constant need to update [[Identifier]] systems; as needs evolve, so will solutions evolve.
-*[[Evolution]] and [[Disruption]] are the ying and yang of the process of change in any ecosystem. In the [[General Theory of Living Systems]] the case is made that an identity ecosystem has all of the characteristics of living ecosystems.
+*[[Evolution]] and [[Disruption]] are the ying and yang of the process of change in any ecosystem. In the [[General Theory of Living Systems]] the case is made that an identity ecosystem has all of the characteristics of living ecosystems. in the [[General Theory of Thinking Systems]] the case is made that non-organic beings also evolve.
 *All evolutionary change occurs within a living ecosystem. Each change must improve the success of the species in the exiting ecosystem. [[Disruption]]s do occur, but even they must succeed in the existing ecosystem, even as they change it.

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 ===Adjacent possible===
-The concept of the “adjacent possible” was introduced by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. It describes the idea that at any given moment, there are a set of possibilities that are just one step away from the current reality. These possibilities represent the next steps that can be taken based on the current state of knowledge, technology, and circumstances. Finding new uses for old artifacts (jury-rigging) is not a computation.  We cannot deduce what is "in" the adjacent possible that the evolving biosphere creates and becomes. We do not even know what can happen.<ref>Stuart Kauffman, ''The "Adjacent Possible" – and How It Explains Human Innovation'' TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtATZePGmg</ref>
+The concept of the “adjacent possible” was introduced by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. It describes the idea that at any given moment, there are a set of possibilities that are just one step away from the current reality. These possibilities represent the next steps that can be taken based on the current state of knowledge, technology, and circumstances. Finding new uses for old artifacts (jury-rigging) is not a computation.  "We cannot deduce what is 'in' the adjacent possible that the evolving biosphere creates and becomes. We do not even know what can happen. For 500 years we have thought the world is a machine. It is not."<ref>Stuart Kauffman, ''The "Adjacent Possible" – and How It Explains Human Innovation'' TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtATZePGmg</ref>
 ===Complexity Catastrophe===

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 ===Adjacent possible===
-The concept of the “adjacent possible” was introduced by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. It describes the idea that at any given moment, there are a set of possibilities that are just one step away from the current reality. These possibilities represent the next steps that can be taken based on the current state of knowledge, technology, and circumstances. Finding new uses for old artifacts (jury-rigging) is not a computation.<ref>Stuart Kauffman, ''The "Adjacent Possible" – and How It Explains Human Innovation'' TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtATZePGmg</ref>
+The concept of the “adjacent possible” was introduced by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. It describes the idea that at any given moment, there are a set of possibilities that are just one step away from the current reality. These possibilities represent the next steps that can be taken based on the current state of knowledge, technology, and circumstances. Finding new uses for old artifacts (jury-rigging) is not a computation.  We cannot deduce what is "in" the adjacent possible that the evolving biosphere creates and becomes. We do not even know what can happen.<ref>Stuart Kauffman, ''The "Adjacent Possible" – and How It Explains Human Innovation'' TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtATZePGmg</ref>
 ===Complexity Catastrophe===

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 ===Adjacent possible===
-The concept of the “adjacent possible” was introduced by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. It describes the idea that at any given moment, there are a set of possibilities that are just one step away from the current reality. These possibilities represent the next steps that can be taken based on the current state of knowledge, technology, and circumstances.<ref>Stuart Kauffman, ''The "Adjacent Possible" – and How It Explains Human Innovation'' TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtATZePGmg</ref>
+The concept of the “adjacent possible” was introduced by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. It describes the idea that at any given moment, there are a set of possibilities that are just one step away from the current reality. These possibilities represent the next steps that can be taken based on the current state of knowledge, technology, and circumstances. Finding new uses for old artifacts (jury-rigging) is not a computation.<ref>Stuart Kauffman, ''The "Adjacent Possible" – and How It Explains Human Innovation'' TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtATZePGmg</ref>
 ===Complexity Catastrophe===

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 As we describe below, any fitness landscape can have its own population of solutions only if that landscape provides an incentive to create new solutions.
 ===Complexity Catastrophe===
 Stuart Kauffman chapter 2 describes the situation<ref name=Kauffman>Stuart A. Kauffman, ''The Origins of Order'' (1993) Oxford ISBN 019507951-5</ref> where "the inexorable onset of a novel Complexity Catastrophe which limits selection. It it the consequence of attempting to optimize in situations of increasingly many conflicting constraints among components: Accessible optima become ever poorer, and fitness peaks dwindle in height." This is the situation we have seen in identifier standards over and over. As a standards effort attracts more participants with a wide variety of needs, the resulting solutions are not optimal for any one solution, but just a muddle of many inputs that satisfies no one. This was the fate of SAML and the first two attempts at OpenID. It was repeated starting in 2021 with self-sovereign identifiers. After the great effort failure to their own over ambitious goals, a simpler solution will eventually arise which just tries to solve one problem well.
-Another way of saying the same thing is that the very idea of a level playing field where no new idea has any advantage over old ideas will effectively end the evolutionary advance of improving the [[Identity Ecosystem]].
+Another way of saying the same thing is that the very idea of a level playing field where no new idea has any advantage over old ideas will effectively end the evolutionary advance of improving the [[Identity Ecosystem]] or even the Digital Ecosystem.
 ===Catastrophic Change===

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 ===Catastrophic Change===
-What can happen when lots of small changes fail to find better performance, eventually a much large change comes along which makes a very significant change which sometimes will cause many of the older patterns to fail is a major way.
+What can happen when lots of small changes (as described in the above section) fail to find better performance, eventually a much large change comes along which makes a very significant change which sometimes will cause many of the older patterns to fail is a major way.
 ===Homoplasy===