by Kelly Driftmier

Evolution is often described as random, chaotic, or directionless. But if you look closely at how biological systems actually develop, a different pattern appears — one that is simple, consistent, and surprisingly elegant:

When evolution finds a solution that works,

it reuses the same idea again and again

at different scales, in different organisms.

I call this evolutionary learning.

This isn’t a metaphor.

It’s a structural pattern that repeats everywhere in biology, from the smallest organisms to the largest ecosystems. Evolution doesn’t reinvent the wheel each time. It keeps refining the same solutions and applying them wherever they fit.

One of the clearest examples of this is lichen.

Lichen → Skin: The First Protective Boundary

Lichen was one of the earliest life forms capable of surviving on bare rock. After periods of planetary damage — asteroid strikes, thermal shock, radiation exposure — lichen spread across the surface of the early Earth like a biological sheath.

It did three crucial things:

1. Protected the surface

2. Held moisture and temperature

3. Created the first conductive boundary for energy and chemistry

It was, structurally, the first version of skin.

Much later, in completely different conditions and on a different scale, animals evolved skin too — a protective layer that regulates moisture, temperature, energy, and environmental interaction.

These are not random coincidences.

This is evolutionary learning:

One idea — a protective membrane — applied twice,

once to a planet and once to a body.

Evolution Reuses Solutions Across All Species

This pattern shows up everywhere:

Fungi built networks → animals built nervous systems

Reptiles shaped thermoregulation → mammals refined temperature control

Early sensory membranes → later became complex sense organs

Primitive chemical signaling → evolved into neurotransmitters

Soil networks → mirrored by microcirculation

Life keeps choosing the same structural answers because they work.

Evolution learns.

Pattern First, Form Second

The important part is not the appearance — lichen and skin don’t look alike.

What matters is the function:

– boundary

– protection

– regulation

– conduction

– homeostasis

Evolution builds based on function.

Once the function works, it scales the pattern into new forms.

This is exactly why the same architectures appear in:

– ecosystems

– animals

– plants

– fungi

– insects

– planetary systems

The underlying structure is the same — just replayed.

Why This Matters to My Theory

My larger theoretical work argues that energy, biology, and consciousness follow the same fundamental architecture across scales — from the universe, to Earth, to living systems, to the human mind.

Evolutionary learning is one of the clearest demonstrations of this.

It shows that life doesn’t just adapt —

it remembers.

Not in the way individuals remember,

but in the way systems preserve and repeat the patterns that work.

Lichen and skin share a blueprint.

Nervous systems and fungal networks share a blueprint.

Planetary homeostasis and biological homeostasis share a blueprint.

Understanding this pattern makes evolution feel less like chaos and more like a long-running conversation —

one where the answers don’t change,

only the scale does.

Evolutionary Learning: Lichen as Prototype
Publication Version