Exaptation

Exaptation is an important concept for innovation that is borrowed from evolutionary theory. There, the exaptive process is part of how evolutionary theories can explain the rise of novelty via a process of radical co-opting of relational aspects of multiple existing features in an emergently synchronized manner towards novel and unpredicted ends.

The now classic example of this is how dinosaurs evolved feathered wings via exaptive processes for a consortium of inter-related practices (egg warming, defense, sexual selection, thermoregulation, etc.), which then, in relation to other exaptations and the processes of niche construction (etc.) allowed for the further co-option for processes related to parachuting, gliding and eventually flying.

It is important to recognize that Exaptation is not the simple co-opting of a physical feature, but rather it is a process in which (1) the potentials for action of an affordance always exceeds current use, (2) how there is an immanent latent potential for the construction of novel affordances in any system by changing aspects of the relation., and (3) exaptation processes a process within the processes of niche construction & its feed-forward cycles.