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 -