timelets

Biologically we can see all organisms as problem-solvers, each action or process as an attempt to solve a problem, however minor or routine. Evolution generates problems and solutions as it generates life. Rocks may crack and erode, but they do not have problems. They do not lose anything if they do not maintain or pass on their form. Amoebas and apes do. Natural selection creates complex new possibilities, and therefore new problems, as it assembles self-sustaining organisms piecemeal, cycle after cycle, by generating partial solutions, testing them, and regenerating from the basis of the best solutions available in the current cycle. In time, it can create richer solutions to richer problems.

Brian Boyd, ibid.