Autocatalytic closure in a cognitive system: A tentative scenario for the origin of culture
arXiv:adap-org/9901002
Abstract
This paper presents a speculative model of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the transition from episodic to mimetic (or memetic) culture with the arrival of Homo erectus, which Donald [1991] claims paved the way for the unique features of human culture. The model draws on Kauffman's [1993] theory of how an information-evolving system emerges through the formation of an autocatalytic network. Though originally formulated to explain the origin of life, this theory also provides a plausible account of how discrete episodic memories become woven into an internal model of the world, or worldview, that both structures, and is structured by, self-triggered streams of thought. Social interaction plays a role in (and may be critical to) this process. Implications for cognitive development are explored.
25 pages, HTML + 10 gif figures; Published version at http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?9.67 ; Version with more accessable figures at http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane/ACCS/ ; Submit Commentaries to [email protected]
References in corpus (1)
Cited by in corpus (16)
- An Introduction to Collective Intelligence
- The Violation of Bell Inequalities in the Macroworld
- Toward an Ecological Theory of Concepts
- Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are
- Conceptual Closure: How Memories are Woven into an Interconnected Worldview
- The Evolution of Intelligence
- An evolutionary process without variation and selection
- Honing Theory: A Complex Systems Framework for Creativity
- Distilling the Essence of an Evolutionary Process and Implications for a Formal Description of Culture
- A Conceptual Network-Based Approach to Inferring the Cultural Evolutionary History of the Baltic Psaltery
- Reframing Convergent and Divergent Thought for the 21st Century
- A Music-generating System Inspired by the Science of Complex Adaptive Systems
- How a Generation Was Misled About Natural Selection
- Autocatalytic Theory of Meaning
- The Beer Can Theory of Creativity
- Cultural Evolution as Distributed Computation