Both of these processes, cultural evolution and organic evolution, share the same dynamic. Put a drop of cream in a cup of coffee and the drop diffuses throughout the coffee. Never, ever, does one see the spontaneous reappearance of a drop of pure cream. But, life is not caf au lait. It does so by taking in energy and using it in an informed way.
Information is a fundamental aspect of life, along with energy and matter.
Matter and energy may be interchangeable, but for Wright, information is more than either of these. It is the glue that holds systems together. It is what conveys meaning, and meaning is what induces behavior, be it at the level of the single cell or the level of human society. Wright traces the evolution of life from the primordial soup to multicellular organisms. It is this 'escalator' that has boosted us to where we presently stand.