creators_name: Gabora, L.
type: journalp
datestamp: 1999-01-27
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:17
metadata_visibility: show
title: The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity
ispublished: pub
subjects: bio-ani-cog
subjects: bio-evo
subjects: bio-theory
subjects: cog-psy
subjects: comp-sci-art-intel
subjects: comp-sci-complex-theory
subjects: comp-sci-mach-dynam-sys
subjects: comp-sci-neural-nets
subjects: dev-psy
subjects: evol-psy
subjects: phil-mind
subjects: soc-psy
full_text_status: public
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.
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.
date: 1997-05
date_type: published
publication: Journal of Memetics: Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
volume: 1
number: 1
pagerange: 1-28
refereed: TRUE
citation:   Gabora, L.  (1997) The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity.  [Journal (Paginated)]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/794/1/oecc.html