> This sounds like another formulation of Ashby's law of requisite > variety (see http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REQVAR.html)
I am reading Darwin's Origin of Species, and already there the explanation of diversity (although he uses a different term) is given by natural selection: if organisms have to compete for the same resources, only few ones will survive. If some are able to be different, they can survive from other resources, to occupy a different niche (I am using modern terminology, but the idea is there). This process of specialization causes species to diverge, and thus drive evolution... > which is in part > responsible for the differentiation and therefore growth in > complexity during evolution: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/compgrow.html I believe Darwin did not speak yet in terms of complexity, but he does explain why there should be more and more different species (and why most of them will become extinct)... so YES, we all agree with Etchegoyen, life is a process of differentiation. Best regards, Carlos Gershenson... Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/ "We can control much better how we accept things than things themselves"
