Generativity Prolonging Generativity: An Epistemic and Topological Correspondence Between Capital Accumulation and Autopoietic Life

This position paper investigates the organization and continuation of living species through Generative–Relational (GR) theory, Rosen’s Metabolism–Repair (M,R) framework, and a proposed correspondence with capital accumulation. Life is characterized as a historically constituted GR object with relational spacetime, generative capacities, and functionally supported tendencies toward the continuation of generativity. An event-based oriented 2-complex provides the formal substrate: vertices encode events, edges encode couplings, and faces carry primitive relational fields. An effective action $S_K$ over admissible histories organizes local processes, constraint renewal, interfacial exchange, historical dependence, and boundary conditions. A stochastic transition model clarifies the additional assumptions required for dissipative biological dynamics. The biological criterion concerns the reciprocal maintenance of constraints contributing to viability; reproduction and historically consequential coupling can extend generative activity beyond the original organism. Direct offspring, AI-assisted scholarly work, adoption, and hypothetical encounters with unfamiliar life expose different mechanisms of continuation and perceived vitality. Marx’s capital circuit supplies a comparative hypothesis, examined through epistemic choices of representation and recognition, topological patterns of recurrent enabling conditions, dynamical transition relations, and the functional interpretation of reproduced capacities. Incidence-preserving maps between selected 2-complex motifs and a separate, optional test of action compatibility distinguish formal comparison from the epistemic grounds of recognizing meaningful correspondences. Stable maintenance, expansion, and transformation remain distinguishable outcomes. The proposed formalism establishes a tractable research agenda for living systems while preserving the distinct causal commitments of biology and political economy.

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Publication Details

Journal
Knowledge Commons (Lakehead University)
Published
2026-11-11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.17613/18jt7-83b68
Primary Topic
Complex Systems and Dynamics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Generativity Prolonging Generativity: An Epistemic and Topological Correspondence Between Capital Accumulation and Autopoietic Life

Wanhong HUANG
Knowledge Commons (Lakehead University)
Complex Systems and Dynamics
article

Generativity Prolonging Generativity: An Epistemic and Topological Correspondence Between Capital Accumulation and Autopoietic Life

Wanhong HUANG
article en

Abstract

This position paper investigates the organization and continuation of living species through Generative–Relational (GR) theory, Rosen’s Metabolism–Repair (M,R) framework, and a proposed correspondence with capital accumulation. Life is characterized as a historically constituted GR object with relational spacetime, generative capacities, and functionally supported tendencies toward the continuation of generativity. An event-based oriented 2-complex provides the formal substrate: vertices encode events, edges encode couplings, and faces carry primitive relational fields. An effective action $S_K$ over admissible histories organizes local processes, constraint renewal, interfacial exchange, historical dependence, and boundary conditions. A stochastic transition model clarifies the additional assumptions required for dissipative biological dynamics. The biological criterion concerns the reciprocal maintenance of constraints contributing to viability; reproduction and historically consequential coupling can extend generative activity beyond the original organism. Direct offspring, AI-assisted scholarly work, adoption, and hypothetical encounters with unfamiliar life expose different mechanisms of continuation and perceived vitality. Marx’s capital circuit supplies a comparative hypothesis, examined through epistemic choices of representation and recognition, topological patterns of recurrent enabling conditions, dynamical transition relations, and the functional interpretation of reproduced capacities. Incidence-preserving maps between selected 2-complex motifs and a separate, optional test of action compatibility distinguish formal comparison from the epistemic grounds of recognizing meaningful correspondences. Stable maintenance, expansion, and transformation remain distinguishable outcomes. The proposed formalism establishes a tractable research agenda for living systems while preserving the distinct causal commitments of biology and political economy.

Knowledge Commons (Lakehead University)
Complex Systems and Dynamics
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