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This paper formally derives three orders of persistence and self-producing systems from foundational premises about change, information capacity, and stable conditions, showing weakness maximization favors open futures and dynamic persistence enables adaptability.
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The Autopoietic Theorem develops a formal framework explaining how an autopoietic hierarchy can arise as a consequence of three premises: change (“cosmic ought”), a finite information capacity (the Bekenstein bound), and stable low-level conditions, yielding three orders of persistence (static, dynamic, and novelty-generating). Using a stack-theoretic interpretation of the Law of Increasing Functional Information, the paper argues that persistence under novelty favors weakness maximization and that this diverges from simplicity maximization in stable environments, addressing “unviable intermediate forms” and motivating self-producing, boundary-maintaining systems. It further claims that dynamic persistence at lower levels enables higher-level adaptability, creating selection pressure for novelty generation and the preconditions for open-ended evolution, with each stage grounded in established models of self-replicating cellular automata, autopoietic protocells, and homeodynamic selves. This paper does not explicitly discuss endometriosis or adenomyosis; it was included in the corpus via a keyword match in the upstream search index.
Abstract
We show that the autopoietic hierarchy is a formal consequence of three foundational premises within any stable, spatially extended environment. These premises are change (the cosmic ought), finite information capacity (the Bekenstein bound), and stable low-level conditions. From these we derive the three orders of persistence (static, dynamic, and novelty-generating) as a chain of formal consequences. A formal Stack Theoretic interpretation of the Law of Increasing Functional Information shows that persistence under novelty favours weakness maximisation, because this keeps the most compatible futures open. We show that weakness maximisation diverges from simplicity maximisation in stable environments. This bridges a void of unviable intermediate forms and entails self-producing, boundary-maintaining systems. We then invoke the Law of the Stack to show that dynamic persistence at lower levels unlocks higher-level adaptability, creating selection pressure for novelty generation and the preconditions for open-ended evolution. The three orders are thus derivable from axioms rather than identified as empirical regularities. We ground each stage in established models of self-replicating cellular automata, autopoietic protocells, and homeodynamic selves. The result subsumes Assembly Theory's proposed orders of selection while deriving them from weaker assumptions, and reframes the origin of life as a question about mechanism rather than about possibility.
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The Autopoietic Theorem | Authorea try { document.documentElement.classList.add('js'); } catch (e) { } var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'G-8VDV14Y67G']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); Skip to main content Preprints Collections Wiley Open Research IET Open Research Ecological Society of Japan All Collections About About Authorea FAQs Contact Us Quick Search anywhere Search for preprint articles, keywords, etc. Search Search ADVANCED SEARCH SCROLL This is a preprint and has not been peer reviewed. Data may be preliminary. 9 April 2026 V1 Latest version Share on The Autopoietic Theorem Authors : Michael Timothy Bennett 0000-0001-6895-8782 [email protected] and Keisuke Suzuki Authors Info & Affiliations https://doi.org/10.22541/au.177575355.56499869/v1 425 views 152 downloads Contents Abstract Supplementary Material Information & Authors Metrics & Citations View Options References Figures Tables Media Share Abstract We show that the autopoietic hierarchy is a formal consequence of three foundational premises within any stable, spatially extended environment. These premises are change (the cosmic ought), finite information capacity (the Bekenstein bound), and stable low-level conditions. From these we derive the three orders of persistence (static, dynamic, and novelty-generating) as a chain of formal consequences. A formal Stack Theoretic interpretation of the Law of Increasing Functional Information shows that persistence under novelty favours weakness maximisation, because this keeps the most compatible futures open. We show that weakness maximisation diverges from simplicity maximisation in stable environments. This bridges a void of unviable intermediate forms and entails self-producing, boundary-maintaining systems. We then invoke the Law of the Stack to show that dynamic persistence at lower levels unlocks higher-level adaptability, creating selection pressure for novelty generation and the preconditions for open-ended evolution. The three orders are thus derivable from axioms rather than identified as empirical regularities. We ground each stage in established models of self-replicating cellular automata, autopoietic protocells, and homeodynamic selves. The result subsumes Assembly Theory's proposed orders of selection while deriving them from weaker assumptions, and reframes the origin of life as a question about mechanism rather than about possibility. Supplementary Material File (tat.pdf) Download 257.76 KB Information & Authors Information Version history V1 Version 1 09 April 2026 Copyright This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Keywords artificial life autopoiesis complexity science cosmic ought free energy principle functional information law of increasing functional information stack theory w-maxing weakness Authors Affiliations Michael Timothy Bennett 0000-0001-6895-8782 [email protected] View all articles by this author Keisuke Suzuki Center for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Neuroscience (CHAIN), Hokkaido University View all articles by this author Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 425 views 152 downloads .FvxKWukQNSOunydq8rnd { width: 100px; } Citations Download citation Michael Timothy Bennett, Keisuke Suzuki. The Autopoietic Theorem. Authorea . 09 April 2026. 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