<p>Incorporating established models from biosemiotics, I propose five observable elements of living systems which are derived from current, established biological theory and empirical data. These identified elements suggest that species may evolve chaotically, not stochastically. One significant means by which it would be possible to examine whether the processes in an evolving living system are chaotic, is by calculating the system’s Lyapunov exponent (LE). The LE indicates the degree of observable chaos in a dynamic system, by determining the convergence or divergence of the system’s processes. It does this by comparing the rate at which two or more process trajectories within the dynamic system move and change. If the trajectories are moving away from each other in phase space, resulting in a positive Lyapunov exponent, it suggests the system is chaotic. Evolving species form process trajectories as their phenotypic characteristics change, whether the driving factors of evolution are external and selective, or internal and agential. Thus, the LE of an evolving system could be used in conjunction with molecular clock tree data to ascertain the degree of divergence, or chaos present in evolving living systems.</p>