  We present a mathematical framework (referred to as Context-driven
Actualization of Potential, or CAP) for describing how entities change over
time under the influence of a context. The approach facilitates comparison of
change of state of entities studied in different disciplines. Processes are
seen to differ according to the degree of nondeterminism, and the degree to
which they are sensitive to, internalize, and depend upon a particular context.
Our analysis suggests that the dynamical evolution of a quantum entity
described by the Schrodinger equation is not fundamentally different from
change provoked by a measurement often referred to as collapse, but a limiting
case, with only one way to collapse. The biological transition to coded
replication is seen as a means of preserving structure in the fact of
context-driven change, and sextual replication as a means of increasing
potentiality thus enhancing diversity through interaction with context. The
framework sheds light on concepts like selection and fitness, reveals how
exceptional Darwinian evolution is as a means of 'change of state', and
clarifies in what sense culture, and the creative process underlying it, are
Darwinian.
