Evolution is typically framed as the outcome of variation and selection within a closed system. Such models cannot explain the sustained rise of complexity across biological, cognitive, cultural, and technological domains. This paper develops a relational framework in which evolution is driven by a triad: organism, environment, and generativity. The organism maintains coherence under variation; the environment provides constraints and affordances; and generativity supplies a constant background of new independent distinctions. Evolution occurs when the organism–environment relation expands its dimensionality to integrate distinctions it has become capable of receiving. Major evolutionary transitions—morphological, neural, cognitive, cultural, and technological—reflect increases in relational receptivity rather than fluctuations in generativity. This yields a non‑interventionist account in which generativity functions as the structural ground of coherence and novelty, and evolution is the unfolding of this constant generative background through an expanding relational field.
Denis Bailey (Tue,) studied this question.