Evolution is often presented as a linear chain: mutation → selection → adaptation. Viewed through morphogenesis, however, natural selection is less a linear mechanism and more a process of reflexive alignment: populations actualising potential within ecological fields, stabilising patterns that coherently align with constraints and opportunities.
1. Selection as field-mediated alignment
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Individual organisms express one of many potential forms, constrained by genetic, developmental, and ecological factors.
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Those whose actualisations align coherently with the field—the ecosystem and interspecies interactions—persist and reproduce.
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Selection is thus relational, not coercive: it is the emergent result of interactions within the field rather than a top-down directive.
2. Drift, cooperation, and competition
Populations are also shaped by stochastic and relational processes:
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Drift introduces random perturbations—perspectival cuts that may or may not stabilise.
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Competition enforces alignment through relational constraints: incompatible actualisations are less likely to persist.
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Cooperation and symbiosis are positive alignments that expand the field of potential, stabilising emergent patterns.
Together, these processes maintain dynamic equilibrium—coherence amidst variability.
3. Recurrence as relational persistence
Just as in embryogenesis or culture:
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Traits recur not because they are hard-coded or preordained, but because the relational field of the ecosystem favours coherent actualisations.
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Phenotypic and behavioural patterns are semiotic expressions of potential, continually reproduced across generations through alignment.
Evolutionary recurrence is therefore structural and topological, not purely genetic or mechanistic.
4. Innovation and adaptation
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Novel traits are perturbations in the population-field.
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Successful innovations align with the ecosystem’s topology, becoming stabilised and integrated.
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The interplay of stability and novelty ensures adaptation emerges organically, without predetermined goals.
5. Implications
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Populations are active participants in morphogenesis, not passive recipients of selection pressures.
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Natural selection, drift, and ecological interactions are mechanisms of alignment, guiding which potentials stabilise and recur.
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Evolution is semiotic and relational, where patterns of form, function, and behaviour are the emergent consequences of recursive alignment across ecological and generational scales.
In the next post, “Ecosystems as Morphogenetic Organisms,” we will scale up further, showing how ecosystems themselves act as fields of potential, orchestrating the alignment of populations and species across space and time.
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