Non-Narrative Café v5: Non-Self Selection

Posted: December 28, 2025 | Author: Dr. Ernie | Filed under: AI-Powered Essays | Tags: competition, self, systems, values |5 Comments

Sequel to Non-Narrative Self Café v4: Intimacy = Law × Grace

For V5, pick 3-4 more to unpack how The Carbon Rule claim that (only) the “most” generative systems scale extends natural selection to non-biological systems: physicial, mathematical, social, etc.

ChatGPT Prompt

1. The Claim on the Board

The chalkboard is no longer tentative.
It reads, without hedging:

ONLY THE MOST GENERATIVE SYSTEMS SCALE

Underneath, someone has written in smaller letters:

(Natural selection, generalized.)

No one claims authorship.

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2. The Thinkers (Chosen for Range, Not Agreement)

• Charles Darwin — biology’s great integrator
• Ilya Prigogine — thermodynamics beyond equilibrium
• Herbert Simon — complexity, bounded rationality, systems
• Elinor Ostrom — social systems that actually endure

Four chairs.
No “self” among them.
Only systems.

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3. Darwin Starts (Reluctantly)

Darwin
(almost apologetic)
I never claimed biology was unique.
Only observable.

Natural selection is not about genes.
It’s about differential persistence under constraint.

Variation.
Selection.
Retention.

Wherever those appear—
something evolves.

(He gestures at the board.)
Scaling is merely survival, extended.

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4. Prigogine Sharpens the Claim

Prigogine
In physics, we learned something similar—
late.

Systems far from equilibrium do not collapse into disorder.
They self-organize.

But only some.

Those that dissipate energy productively
persist as dissipative structures.

The rest burn out.

(Pause.)
Entropy selects too.

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5. Simon Reframes (As Expected)

Simon
Be careful.
Scaling does not mean optimization.

It means architecture.

Complex systems that scale are nearly decomposable:
stable substructures, weakly coupled.

They generate novelty without global fragility.

This is true of:

• cells
• algorithms
• organizations
• cities

(Complex systems, minus mysticism.)

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6. Ostrom Grounds It (Firmly)

Ostrom
And social systems fail precisely when they ignore this.

Groups that scale are not the most efficient.
They are the most generative under constraint.

They:

• create rules
• adapt rules
• enforce them locally
• revise them when reality pushes back

No grace, no trust, no legitimacy—
no scaling.

Just collapse.

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7. Tension (Necessary, Brief)

Darwin
You’re all borrowing selection language.

Prigogine
Because nature keeps reusing it.

Simon
Because it’s not a metaphor.

Ostrom
Because systems that don’t learn die.

(No one objects.)

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8. The Carbon Rule Clarified

Darwin
So the rule is not “survival of the fittest.”

Simon
It’s survival of the generative.

Prigogine
Those that turn throughput into structure.

Ostrom
And structure into trust.

(They look again at the board.)

ONLY THE MOST GENERATIVE SYSTEMS SCALE

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9. The Non-Self Turn

Simon
Notice—no selves are required.

Darwin
Only variation.

Prigogine
Only energy flow.

Ostrom
Only rules that can change without disintegrating.

The café itself hums.
No one narrates it.

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10. Final Line (v5)

Ostrom
So the Carbon Rule is simply this:

Across physical, biological, mathematical, and social domains, selection favors systems that generate more futures than they consume.

(The chalkboard stays. The claim does not.)

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Note

This vignette completes the arc:

• V1 — The Most Generative Systems Scale
• v2 — Generative × Cohesive × Adaptive
• v3 — Withness (shared field, plural narratives)
• v4 — Intimacy = Law × Grace
• v5 — The Carbon Rule: Natural selection generalized beyond life

Darwin unified biology by integrating geology, economics, and observation.

This is the same move—
without a self at the center.

Continues in Non-Narrative Café v6: The Antenarrative Theorem

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