Evolution works by creating and maintaining improbable structures against entropy

Evidence

In the evolutionary process the more likely event usually asserts itself because it happens more often and can be reproduced more quickly. The unlikely event, if you like, must be introduced and be maintained counter to this tendency (or as scientists would have it – counter to the tendency towards entropy). Evolution equals the creation of improbabilities – or, if one so wishes to put it, normalizes the improbable. This always involves, among other things, a time problem, in other words a balancing-out of the temporal advantages of the probable, e.g. in organic evolution by means of catalysis or by controlling the speed of reproduction. Susceptibility to accidents increases alongside this. If the relatively probable has to compete with the relatively improbable for chances to reproduce, time acquires structure in the sense that it is no longer equally probable and no longer a matter of indifference when something happens, and time acquires irreversibility, in the sense that lost opportunities do not recur (as long as there is no structural guarantee that in rare cases repetition can be assured). — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 750

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines evolution as ‘the normalization of the improbable’ and connects it to the time problem of irreversible opportunity loss.
• XREF: This is the conceptual scaffold for Luhmann’s media theory: communication media exist to transform improbable communication into probable — directly relevant to system trust reducing complexity. — connects to: Biophony structure arises from four evolutionary pressure mechanisms — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology: Principles,…, 492