--- abstract: '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.' altloc: - http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1997/vol1/gabora_l.html chapter: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: ~ conference: ~ confloc: ~ contact_email: ~ creators_id: [] creators_name: - family: Gabora given: L. honourific: '' lineage: '' date: 1997-05 date_type: published datestamp: 1999-01-27 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/07/94 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 794 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/794/1/oecc.html full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: pub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: 'abstraction, adaptation, altruism, animal cognition, attractor, autocatalysis, categorization, censorship, cognitive development, cognitive origins, consciousness, creativity, culture, cultural learning, culturaltransmission, distributed representation, diversity, drives, episodic memory, evolution, fitness, information, imitation, innovation, Lamarckian evolution, meme, memory, mimesis, mimetic culture, origin of life, pattern, replication, representational redescription, selection, self-organization, social learning, subsymbolic computation, worldview.' lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:17 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: 1 pagerange: 1-28 pubdom: FALSE publication: 'Journal of Memetics: Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission' publisher: ~ refereed: TRUE referencetext: ~ relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 8 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:34:27 subjects: - bio-ani-cog - bio-evo - bio-theory - cog-psy - comp-sci-art-intel - comp-sci-complex-theory - comp-sci-mach-dynam-sys - comp-sci-neural-nets - dev-psy - evol-psy - phil-mind - soc-psy succeeds: ~ suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity type: journalp userid: 352 volume: 1