Development Sequence

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Timing of Development
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Development of a living system occurs in many forms, at different stages of a its life cycle. From an evolutionary view, design improvement is continually taking place at the species level, through natural selection. Within that framework, each living system instance contributes to species improvement, based on its unique design variations and developmental responses to environmental conditions.
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Living Systems are Always Under Development

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For individual living systems, initial physical growth may take place after creation but before birth, in the protective environment of an egg or womb. In organisms, key governance development takes place after birth, during physical growth. For humans, initial societal development occurs during growth, and continues as a they mature and age.
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Purpose of Development
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Within this perpetual development framework, living systems of different species and at different levels show a wide variation in their specific development sequences. In a general way, the simple creation-development-operation-death schema always holds true, and is seen most clearly in non-dependent living systems. For dependent living systems, however, more complex sequences are required, because their purposes are tied to that of their higher-level living systems.
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Purpose of Development in a Dependent Living System:
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Provide Ability to Do the Work of a Higher-Level Living System

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Doing the work of a higher-level living system requires specialization. Within a living system, dependent components are harnessed to work cooperatively as teams within organization units. Each organization unit is specialized to participate in specific aspects of one or more life functions of its living system, and this defines the main kind of work that its members perform.
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For dependent cells, work specialization takes place as a new cell migrates to a particular organ of its higher-level organism. During this process, specific genes are selectively turned on or off to create the specialized capabilities required for its functional integration into that organ.
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For dependent human organisms, work specialization usually takes place through formal education and on-the-job training. During this process specific skills and knowledge bases are developed within their physical structures and governance mechanisms that allow them to participation in a particular kind of work. Some people continue to apply these original skills throughout their working life, while others undergo additional development and extend to new kinds of work in different organizations. Development must always precede operational use of an ability, but units of development-usage may occur incrementally.
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Basic Development Sequence
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A dependent cell has a relatively simple development sequence. Its genetic design is fixed at the time of its creation. Once a cell is constructed, selected genes within its DNA structure are switched on or off in response to the organism's gene-market needs. Once it begins operation the cell's structure is fixed, any further adaptation must occur at the species level, where natural selection takes place within the species gene pool.
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A dependent organism has a more flexible and complex development sequence. Although fixed at creation, its genetic design includes propensities that allow imprinting and external programming by its superorganism's meme pool. Unlike a cell or organism, a superorganism evolves and adapts within its own life span. To participate effectively in the structure of a superorganism, a dependent component organism must maintain some ongoing ability to re-specialize when necessary.
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The following table compares the general development sequences for cells and organisms:
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Development Sequence	Dependent Cell	Dependent Organism
Design Creation	DNA replication	fertilization of oocyte
Initial Physical Construction	physical replication within cell	gestation in egg or womb
Birth	cytokinesis	expulsion
Cultural Imprinting	n/a	growth & meme-imprinting
Work Specialization	gene-switching on/off	meme-programming
Operation	work & self-maintenance	work & self-maintenance

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Externally-Controlled Development
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While the development of a dependent cell proceeds in a linear sequence of steps, an organism's life after birth is often more complicated. For a complex organism such as a human, this may involve both social and occupational changes. A person may move from a small rural town to a large city, or emigrate to a new country, requiring quick adoption of a different culture and training for a new job market. The best job opportunities may have moved in a new direction, requiring substantial re-education for a new career. Either through voluntary self-advancement or job market forces, most people undergo some kind of additional development stages throughout their adult life.

These organism-level changes can be viewed as responses either to changes in their internal condition (ailments, injury, aging, etc.) or to changes in the "external" environment that is provided within their superorganism. In either case, all development actions of the organism are constrained-by or driven-by conditions in their external world.

As the provider for most of the conditions in its component organisms' external world, a superorganism regulates its internal conditions to maintain homeostasis as it grows and as its own external environment changes. It responds both to take advantage of opportunities for improvement of its condition, and to mobilize against threats of any kind. Although its time scale is longer and its reaction time far slower than that its component organisms, such responses will periodically impact the conditions within which they live and the work they perform.

To survive its external environmental changes, the superorganism must maintain its internal environment within certain limits. Those internal conditions must allow its component organisms to collectively continue working to produce its life functions, while providing the self-maintenance necessary for their own survival. But sometimes actions by the superorganism may require sacrifices at the organism level for the "good of the whole." In time of war, many component organisms may become casualties for the sake of the nation. In times of national disaster, where the superorganism is wounded, it may not be possible to protect or care for every affected component organism while attending to its other homeostatic demands. In times of national financial crisis, the superorganism may not be able to protect all of its individual organization units and the jobs they provide for its component organisms.

The next section Superorganism Development takes a closer look at markets, and their affect on the lives of their members.