Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality (ETI)

Theory explaining how new levels of biological organization and individuality emerge through transitions in collective intelligence and problem-solving rescaling.

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Papers (1)

paper

Design for an Individual: Connectionist Approaches to the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality
about

Thinkers (2)

thinker

Eörs Szathmáry
studies
Foundational researcher on major transitions in evolution and emergence; frequently cited throughout.
John Maynard Smith
studies

Claims (1)

claim

The kind of relationships necessary to produce evolutionary individuality – the generation and heritability of fitness differences at the collective level – are the same as those required to produce organismic individuality – the information integration and collective action characteristic of a self.
supports
Core conjecture linking evolutionary and organismic individuality.

Frameworks (4)

framework

Evolutionary Transitions In Individuality Etis
related_to
Evolutionary Connectionism
implements
Proposed framework translating connectionist learning principles into natural selection domain to explain ETIs.
Individuation Mechanisms
cites
Traits (developmental bottlenecks, germ separation, immune regulation, physical boundaries) that enable collectives to exhibit heritable variation in fitness.
Social Evolution Theory (Inclusive Fitness)
associated_with
Theory explaining cooperation through genetic relatedness; argues altruism arises because interactors share genes

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

Evolutionary Transitions In Individualityconcept0.866
Evolutionary Transitionconcept0.811
Evolutionary transitions in individuality correspond to deep interaction structures or perhaps other mechanisms of multi-scale dynamics.hypothesis0.807
Concrete proposal about necessary architecture for ETIs.
Evolutionary Individualityconcept0.804
Property where evolution of the whole is non-decomposable function of evolution of parts; central to understanding ETIs.
Evolutionary transitions in individuality constitute a form of deep model induction.claim0.789
Links ETIs to the learning of hierarchical representations.
Connectionist Approach To Evolutionary Transitions In Individualityframework0.783
ETIs are the evolutionary equivalent of deep learning: (i) required functional relationships encode non-decomposable functions, (ii) these are enacted by basal cognition mechanisms, and (iii) conditions for deep model induction predict ETI occurrence.hypothesis0.782
Overarching three-part hypothesis stated in introduction
What Mechanisms Enable Major Evolutionary Transitions In Individualityquestion0.772