More snippable short sequences — Construction sequences as process genes

It is difficult to find social conditions in which all the features of the construction process can change at the same time, hence extremely difficult to introduce such a new process as a whole.

What was difficult or impossible as a larger act of social transformation, becomes possible when one uses a genetic approach to achieve the same aims. What is needed is simply a way of “cutting up” the original innovative process, into a small set of process genes or small sequences that work individually, and that are robust enough to work in a wide variety of contexts, even when not supported by other parts of the new system.

Isn’t that exactly how structured programming works and how the most basic library functions come into being?

This is where generality and composability are important features — they are features of the steps in sequences (which itself can be sub-sequences, just like functions can call other functions within themselves).

(Of course, this is the way technological evolution takes place, anyway. But we are talking, now, about the possibility of injecting morphogenetic sequences into the mainstream.)

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/20 The spread of living processes throughout society#