Variation¶
Definition¶
Variation = generating new candidate constraints for selection to filter. Costs exergy up front for an uncertain return, which is why it looks like waste from inside.
Sources¶
| Source | Biology | Work | Cost per useful variant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Random | Mutation | Accidents, mistakes | High |
| Recombination | Sexual reproduction | Combining practices, cross-domain hires | Medium |
| Transfer | Horizontal gene transfer | Copying competitors, open source, consultants | Low; produces sameness |
| Directed | Rare | Modeling, design, experiments, simulation | Lowest |
Cheap media¶
D8. Intelligence moves variation and selection into cheap media. [Framing] Evolution tests variants by building them and letting them die. Minds, models and prototypes test them before committing real exergy ("let our hypotheses die in our stead", Popper). Much knowledge work is variation and selection in a low-energy medium steering high-energy commitments.
D9. When variation becomes cheap, selection becomes the bottleneck. [Hypothesis] AI pushes variant generation toward zero cost. Scarcity moves to evaluation, judgment, grounding and accountability.
Balance¶
| Variation | Selection | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Low | Strong | Efficient, brittle |
| High | Weak | Novelty without consolidation; waste |
| Cut as "waste" | Any | Loss of adaptability (common in mature orgs) |
Stop point¶
Heredity in organizations (culture, playbooks, people) is looser than genetic heredity, which weakens selection. Further detail does not change the physics, so it is not expanded here.