From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon 04 Apr 2005 - 00:41:58 GMT
In their book _Not By Genes Alone_ (p. 136) Richerson
and Boyd talk about a "theory of mind module" which
"is required for observational learning" according to
some psychologists. In the context of what Richerson
and Boyd are referring to imitation and cumulative
cultural evolution could supposedly rely upon
possession of this putative module.
In his so-called Russian Manuscript Konrad Lorenz
seems to have thought about a similar cognitive organ,
but in terms of evolutionized Kantian philosophy and
the nascent field of ethology or comparative
behavioral research. Lorenz wrote (p. 159): "From an
epistemological point of view, the immediate
*obviousness* of the existence of experiencing fellow
subjects is closely related to innate "a priori" forms
of thought and interpretation."
Lorenz continues (p. 160): "Now our innate forms of
experience, which permit us to experience certain life
expressions of other beings immediately as something
spiritual, possess the character of so-called *innate
releasing patterns*."
He goes on to say that these patterns relate to our
psychological tendency to anthropomorphize and how
this tendency can have erroneous results when
"*projected* onto *nonhuman* organisms and even onto
organic objects." An example he provides is how the
physical features of a eagle are interpreted as
"bold". Just look at a symbol of the United States ;-)
One might even wonder if this "innate schema" could be
activated in the case of someone looking at genes and
memes.
Anyway it looks at least superficially like Lorenz is
hinting at the same thing, although cruder, that
Richerson and Boyd have (ie a theory of mind module).
Lorenz is showing the drawbacks of such a schema when
it misfires on animals and other objects of the
environment to which we might attribute human
characteristics, where Richerson and Boyd address the
importance of such a module in the advent of cultural
evolution via cumulative adaption resulting from
imitation of others.
refs:
Konrad Lorenz. 1996. The Natural Science of the Human
Species. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts
Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd. 2005. Not By Genes
Alone. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago
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