ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 9 In the introduction to this chapter, exergy is used as the core concept which explains evolution. Species evolution has caused increasingly better use of resources (exergy and material). Species as well as ecosystems as a whole therefore tend to progress toward more complex dissipative structure producing more complex behavior. Interacting species in a common ecosystem evolve toward specialisation, speciation, synergy, complexification, diversity, and more efficient use of exergy and material resources. This leads the author to present his orientation theory: self-organising systems develop a set of emergent objectives (basic orientors) that are identical across all systems in normal environments. They are defined to have the following six properties: normal state, sparse resources, variety, fluctuation, change, and the influence from other systems. The orientors correspond to six properties of the system: existence, effectiveness, freedom of action, security, adaptability, and coexistence. The six properties of the system have a one-to-one relationship with the properties of the environment.
