The principles of the emergence of new qualities are analyzed on the basis of the evolutionary analogies of biological systems and models of interacting systems. It is pointed out thatcompetitiondoes not create new qualities; it only elaborates on and disseminates a certain trait of the system. New qualities are generated by symbiotic interactions:mutualism, cooperationandpredator-prey-likeones. Special attention is called to the evolution of the predator-prey-like system, as it evolves into anorganizedand evenanticipatorysystem: when this system becomes a simple cyberneticregulator, when the predator specializes to process ∼1 bit of information; when the system can regulate many parameters and the predator becomes a complexprocessorof information that controls the activity of the Prey, that is the transformations of matter/energy, when additional memory structures that contain fixed sets of programs emerge (programmed control); and when, finally, a special structure that canmodelthe internal and external world andstore informationdevelops, and the whole system becomes ananticipatory system. ©1999 American Institute of Physics.