Definition

Living process

* any adaptive process
* generates living structure
	* step by step
	* through structure-preserving transformations

A living process is any adaptive process which generates living structure, step by step, through structure-preserving transformations.

Generating living structure

* not trial-and-error
* coherent whole emerges, step by step
* each step
	* respects what is there before: preserve previous wholeness
	* takes structure in new direction: create something new
		* from invisible, dormant, latent structure already there
		* not by arbitrary insertion or arbitrary new structure

When living structure is generated, it is not merely done by trial-and-error, rather the process has the feature that a coherent whole emerges, step by step. At each step, the process preserves the wholeness of what was there before. Yet at each moment in the evolution of the structure, from the additional, invisible structure which lies dormant (in the crevices of the structure), the transformations also have the ability to create something entirely new. Thus the process performs the seeming miracle that it respects what is there before, yet also manages to take the structure in a new direction, towards something which was not there before. And it does this not by arbitrary insertion of arbitrary new structure, but by pulling on latent aspects of the structure which are there already. Latent, they are there. But they are not yet visible or manifest.
The living process contains the procedure which makes this apparent miracle occur.

-> The hierarchy of individual and accretive processes

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/7 The fundamental differentiating process#