EVOLUTION

(l) A process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse, to a higher, more complex, or better state; a process of change in some direction. (Webster's) (2) The coming into being of a new and higher order process. (Laszlo) (3) The development of each species from different, usually simpler ancestral forms. The more similar are two species, the closer in time are they likely to be to a common ancestor. (Arbib) (4) history of change in the realization of an invariant organization embodied in independent unities sequentially generated through reproductive steps, in which the particular structural realization of each unity arises as a modification of the preceding one (or ones) which, thus, constitutes both its sequential and historical antecedent. (Maturana and Varela, 1979)