New surpassing the old

General tendency of the development of living structures, society and of human consciousness. If life is taken, not as an isolated and singular occurrence, but as a step of greater complexity in the structure of nature, then the universe itself can be considered as developing in an irreversible direction (following the arrow of time), in which simple structures tend to surpass their initial condition, interacting, grouping together, and finally achieving a greater complexity than that of the previous moment. On the other hand, if life is viewed as an isolated case and likewise the universe, as another singular phenomenon, then one cannot speak of the tendency of the surpassing of the old by the new. But, at the same time, such a view will render general science impossible ―there is no science of the singular and non-repeatable. Cosmologies as well as the biology of earlier eras opted for the tendency to imagine a universe that tends to lose energy and order. In this way, the organizations of increasing complexity were seen as singular cases, as phenomena of hazard. For N.H., the n.s.o. is a general tendency of the development of the universe. In the case of society, this tendency is expressed in generational dialectics, in which the new generations (*) finally prevail. In the consciousness it is expressed in the temporal dialectic in which future time has primacy; and history, as the surpassing of present moments by other, more complex ones that advance toward an irreversible future. It is in the de-structuring (*) of any system where the rupture brought about by the new surpassing the old is verified. Nevertheless, the most progressive elements of the previous stage are incorporated into the new evolutionary step, and the elements that do not adapt to the changed conditions are discarded.