TY - GEN
ID - cogprints794
UR - http://cogprints.org/794/
A1 - Gabora, L.
Y1 - 1997/05//
N2 - Like the information patterns that evolve through biological processes, mental representations, or memes, evolve through adaptive exploration and transformation of an information space through variation, selection, and transmission. Since unlike genes, memes do not come packaged with instructions for their replication, our brains do it for them, strategically, guided by a fitness landscape that reflects both internal drives and a worldview that is continually updated through meme assimilation. This paper presents a model for how an individual becomes a meme-evolving agent via the emergence of an autocatalytic network of sparse, distributed memories, and discusses implications for complex, creative thought processes and why they are unique to humans. Memetics can do more than account for the spread of catchy tunes; it can pave the way for the kind of overarching framework for the humanities that the first form of evolution has provided for the biological sciences.
KW - abstraction
KW - adaptation
KW - altruism
KW - animal cognition
KW - attractor
KW - autocatalysis
KW - categorization
KW - censorship
KW - cognitive development
KW - cognitive origins
KW - consciousness
KW - creativity
KW - culture
KW - cultural learning
KW - culturaltransmission
KW - distributed representation
KW - diversity
KW - drives
KW - episodic memory
KW - evolution
KW - fitness
KW - information
KW - imitation
KW - innovation
KW - Lamarckian evolution
KW - meme
KW - memory
KW - mimesis
KW - mimetic culture
KW - origin of life
KW - pattern
KW - replication
KW - representational redescription
KW - selection
KW - self-organization
KW - social learning
KW - subsymbolic computation
KW - worldview.
TI - The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity
SP - 1
AV - public
EP - 28
ER -