---
title: "Scaffolding"
description: "Bratton's name for the pattern by which whatever persists in evolution becomes a component of something more complex, so that, in his Antikythera essay, \"complexity begets complexity.\" His chain…"
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/scaffolding"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/scaffolding"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# Scaffolding

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/scaffolding), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

Bratton's name for the pattern by which whatever persists in evolution becomes a component of something more complex, so that, in his Antikythera essay, "complexity begets complexity." His chain runs: replicating chemistry scaffolds life; autopoiesis scaffolds Allopoiesis; the drive to artificialize scaffolds complex intelligence; intelligence scaffolds symbolic language; language, as training data, scaffolds AI, which is therefore the Artificialization of artificialization. Bratton's open question: "For what is AI a scaffold?" Bratton reads Walker's assembly theory as a scaffold theory, the assembly index counting nested scaffolds and hence evolutionary time, which is why the term sits with Recursive Worlds although Walker never uses the word. Accept All Cookies lists it beside major transitions and exaptation. Likavčan borrows it differently: in Substrate-Agnostic Ecology the technosphere is the biosphere's scaffold for assisted reproduction and evolution. Bratton insists scaffolds are not superseded but persist, amplified by what they enable.

## Appears in

- [Planetary Sapience Symposium](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/planetarysapience) (2025-11-21)
- [The Long L](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/longl) (2025-11-21)
- [What Is Intelligence?](https://antikythera.wiki/work/substack/2025-11-18-what-is-intelligence) (2025-11-18)
- [Accept All Cookies](https://antikythera.wiki/work/book/accept-all-cookies) (2025-05-10)
- [57 Ideas & Questions about Cognitive Infrastructures](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/coginfra-film) (2025-05-10)
- [After Alignment](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/afteralignment) (2025-05-10)
- [Speculative Philosophy of Planetary Computation](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/spoc) (2025-05-10)
- [Antikythera](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/research) (2025-05-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._