TY  - GEN
ID  - cogprints975
UR  - http://cogprints.org/975/
A1  - Gabora, L.
TI  - Autocatalytic Closure in a Cognitive System: A Tentative Scenario for the Origin of Culture
Y1  - 1998/12//
N2  - 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.
AV  - public
KW  - abstraction
KW  -  altruism
KW  -  animal cognition
KW  -  attractor
KW  -  autocatalysis
KW  -  categorization
KW  -  censorship
KW  -  concept
KW  -  consciousness
KW  -  content addressability
KW  -  creativity
KW  -  culture
KW  -  cultural learning
KW  -  distributed representation
KW  -  diversity
KW  -  drives
KW  -  episodic memory
KW  -  evolution
KW  -  fitness
KW  -  homo Erectus
KW  -  information
KW  -  imitation
KW  -  innovation
KW  -  modularity
KW  -  meme
KW  -  memory
KW  -  mimesis
KW  -  origin of life
KW  -  pattern
KW  -  representational redescription
KW  -  selection
KW  -  self-organization
KW  -  social learning
KW  -  subsymbolic computation
KW  -  symbol manipulation
KW  -  worldview.
ER  -

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