From: Bruce Edmonds (b.edmonds@mmu.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 15 Oct 2003 - 10:59:12 GMT
Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are
by Liane Gabora
To appear in Biology and Philosophy, BIPH264-02
CONTENTS
1 Does Culture Evolve like Biological Lineages Do? *
2 Two Kinds of Replicators *
2.1 Coded Replicators *
2.2 Primitive Replicators *
3 Does Anything in Culture Constitute a Replicator? *
3.1 Ideas and Artifacts are not Coded Replicators *
3.1.1 Are Cultural Entities Interpreted? *
3.1.2 Are Cultural Entities Copied (without Interpretation)? *
3.2 Interconnected Worldview as Primitive Replicator *
3.2.1 Conceptual Closure *
4 Implications for the Evolution of Culture *
4.1 What Evolves is Worldviews, Not Ideas *
4.2 Evolving without Copying from a Code *
4.3 Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics *
5 Conclusions *
Abstract.
An idea is not a replicator because it does not consist of coded
self-assembly instructions. It may retain structure as it passes from
one individual to another, but does not replicate it. The cultural
replicator is not an idea but an associatively-structured network of
them that together form an internal model of the world, or worldview. A
worldview is a primitive, uncoded replicator, like the autocatalytic
sets of polymers widely believed to be the earliest form of life.
Primitive replicators generate self-similar structure, but because the
process happens in a piecemeal manner, through bottom-up interactions
rather than a top-down code, they replicate with low fidelity, and
acquired characteristics are inherited. Just as polymers catalyze
reactions that generate other polymers, the retrieval of an item from
memory can in turn trigger other items, thus cross-linking memories,
ideas, and concepts into an integrated conceptual structure. Worldviews
evolve idea by idea, largely through social exchange. An idea
participates in the evolution of culture by revealing certain aspects of
the worldview that generated it, thereby affecting the worldviews of
those exposed to it. If an idea influences seemingly unrelated fields
this does not mean that separate cultural lineages are contaminating one
another, because it is worldviews, not ideas, that are the basic unit of
cultural evolution.
Keywords: associative network, acquired characteristics, autocatalytic
closure, conceptual closure, culture, evolution, idea, origin of life,
replicator, self-replication, worldview.
Available for the moment at:
http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane/papers/replicator.html
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed 15 Oct 2003 - 11:06:02 GMT