Differential Ontology 105

It's not 101 because this isn't the most fundamental tenet of Differential Ontology. But it's the one that has been most on my mind lately.

Repeat after me, class: The investment in infrastructure is the mechanism for the evolution of higher levels of organization and organism. Remember that organisms are coupled with their enviornment, and that their interactions with thsmelves need not lead to a linear extrapolation of the higher level from a reduction possible to the lower level. Combining the two effects: organisms with invested infrastructure - either of their own, through construction, inheritance, or acquisition; or shared, communal infrastructure - interacting together to form levels that operate according to their own rules which cannot be reduced to the level of the organsims.

Translation: patterns exist which cannot be captured by or reduced to the operation of the individuals. (that's D.O. 101) However, the indivual itself must be considered as coupled with its infrastructrue, and it is qua that coupling that they are efficacious in bringing about higher levels.

I'll epxlain what all this means later; for now it was more important that I wrote it down. Good luck finding the magic decoder ring.