Evolution as Dimensionality Expansion: The Organism–Environment–Generativity Triad

Evolution as Dimensionality Expansion develops a generative reformulation of evolutionary theory grounded in the organism–environment relation and a third structural term: generativity. Classical evolutionary models assume a closed universe in which variation occurs within fixed dimensions, but rising complexity across biological, cognitive, cultural, technological, and artificial domains contradicts this assumption. As the paper states, “Generativity expands the dimensionality of the relational field, producing new coherence regimes and new evolutionary trajectories.” The triadic framework—organism as coherence, environment as constraint, generativity as the source of new independent variation—explains major evolutionary transitions as dimensionality expansions rather than refinements. Generativity is formalized as the rate of dimensional growth in the relational field, providing a structural account of novelty, coherence regime transitions, and open‑ended evolution. Case studies from the Cambrian explosion to artificial intelligence illustrate the model’s explanatory power. The paper concludes with a non‑interventionist theological implication: generativity functions as the background condition enabling coherence and complexity in an open universe.