Complexity: The Evolution of Identity and Diversity

Abstract

The consequences of complexity science is inevitable for our understanding of the emergence and evolution of identity and diversity in ecologies and human social systems. Resulting from evolutionary processes in which successive behavioural explorations occurred which enabled the capturing of resources in the system. By comparing examples studying the evolution and co-evolution of Darwin’s Finches, of economic markets and organizational forms and of social entities, the chapter offers a view of evolution in human systems that challenges traditional and reductionistic theories of biological determinism. Identities are created and co-evolve in an on-going evolutionary process. Even though one cannot understand what exactly creates the micro-diversity underlying a system, it can be established that all the underlying phenomena obey the same kind of behaviour – that of evolving complex systems. By allowing ourselves to be “evolvers” and by exploring our own diversity, a richer set of possibilities are created on which the collective system can thrive.