Cultural Evolution

In You Are the Universe, the contemplative endocrinologist Deepak Chopra and the MIT physicist Menas Kafatos offer a groundbreaking, lucid work on consciousness that is refreshingly accessible without relying upon mathematical language or overspecialized jargon. In summary, their book is a serious attempt to address the fundamental contemporary question, “Is the universe made of matter that learned to think, or is the universe made of mind that created matter?” (Chopra & Kafatos, 2017, p. 154). By the end of the book Chopra and Kafatos have gone so far as to argue that not only is the universe created and sustained by an underlying mind but that we are the universe, we are that mind. In a real sense, they declare, we as an organic species have co-created this universe.

In the paper, we express some doubts about one of the assumptions
of Robert Carneiro’s model on state (and chiefdom) formation,
namely the role of circumscription. In our opinion, the main flaw of
Carneiro’s original theory of state formation is that it implicitly
assumes that every community dreamt to conquer its neighboring
communities. We test the presence of various types of warfare (such
as conquest warfare, land acquisition warfare, and plunder warfare)
in societies with different degrees of political centralization.
Quantitative cross-cultural tests reveal a rather strong correlation
between political complexity and the presence of conquest warfare
suggesting that conquest warfare was virtually absent among
independent communities. Newer works by Carneiro propose a
model explaining how simple chiefdoms could appear in the absence
of conquest warfare. This model also includes circumscription, but
our analysis suggests that it is unnecessary.

This book argues that thinking is bounded by neither the brain nor the skin of an organism. Cognitive systems function through integration of neural and bodily functions with the functions of representational vehicles. The integrationist position offers a fresh contribution to the emerging embodied and embedded approach to the study of mind.

I review quantitative data for several major social and economic changes in central Mexico from the Classic Period through the Late Postclassic Period. Two kinds of trajectories through time can be identified. First, population and urbanization exhibited U-shaped curves of change: High values for Teotihuacan in the Classic, then lower values during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic periods, followed by high values again in the Late Postclassic (Aztec) Period. On the other hand, economic measures (trade and commercialization) increased over this interval, while measures of well-being or standard of living declined. This is a preliminary study that points to the importance of quantitative archaeological data for research on the changes that took place in ancient Mesoamerica.

This short and easily comprehensible text is my introductionary attempt at writing a philosophical treatise. I have tried to explicate the diachronic issues and obstacles that stand in the way of the development of our species. The text is by no means exhaustive, and it does not propose any solutions to those problems, nor does it acknowledge any philosophical standpoints that have already tried to tackle them. All of this will eventually be present in the final treatise, thoroughly expanded. 

For now, let the text serve the function of a holistic introduction to the human species from the logistical perspective: what problems are we destined to face, and how does that correlate to the way we have chosen to organize our world?

Are there any transhistorical Great Problems that come to your mind? I am curious about your opinions and any constructive criticism, this is a topic worth discussing.

This review article addresses the historical argument of Norenzayan's Big Gods. It questions the claim that there is enough historical evidence to support the thesis that gods, who are observing human behaviour from high, enable societies to grow beyond the stage of face-to-face groups.

Cultural background of identities calls for upholding of values, but realities of multicultural interactions require cross-cultural compromises. Compromises begin already with the introduction of the term multiculturalism, which served both as a platform for cross-cultural urban policies in major western cities and for a non-class analysis of a new class structure. The unexpected result of the popularity of the concept of multiculturalism in urban policies is its managerial application in knowledge intensive organizations. Multiculturalism in inter-organizational uses justifies empowerment, learning organization and attempted emancipation of corporate citizens. Robustness of Hofstede’s model of national cultures’ dimensions lies in his correct prediction of the evolution of hierarchic bureaucracy, while weaknesses result from the extended scope of dimensions, which require “unzipping” and from excessive reliance on the nation-state led process of socialization. Unzipping, already st...

Art and Adaptability: Consciousness and Cognitive Culture  (Brill/Rodopi 2018, ISBN: 9789004354524, 216 pgs., 5 color illustrations) represents over three years of work and the culmination of a trilogy of books, written over the course of more than a decade, addressing the arts and humanities in light of evolution. Art and Adaptability argues for a co-evolution of theory of mind and material/art culture. Art and Adaptability argues for a co-evolution of theory of mind and material/art culture. The book covers relevant areas from great ape intelligence, hominin evolution, Stone Age tools, Paleolithic culture and art forms, to neurobiology. We use material and art objects, whether painting or sculpture, to modify our own and other people’s thoughts so as to affect behavior. We don’t just make judgments about mental states; we create objects about which we make judgments in which mental states are inherent. Moreover, we make judgments about these objects to facilitate how we explore the minds and feelings of others. The argument is that it’s not so much art because of theory of mind but art as theory of mind.

The alleged problems associated with self-control, hyperbolic discounting and other examples of seemingly irrational intertemporal choice are examined in the context of an evolution-based neurobiological model that emphasizes the role of the biological evolution of big brains and language and the cultural evolution of institutions. There is no utility function in the brain; it has no central-planner, in fact, the brain is a self-organized complex system, a decentralized spontaneous order. This spontaneous order is coordinated, much like an economy, by a distributed network that maintains and makes available the discounted net value of various options to decentralized and specialized areas in the brain when making decisions. Further, that decision making is embodied and embedded in the decision making environment. For humans, an important part of that environment is the social environment consisting of institutions and other components of culture. It was, in part, the evolution of this environment that made long-range planning possible. Additionally, it is very often the lack of embedded experience with the environment that leads to what seems to be irrational intertemporal choices. In fact, under close examination the evidence for consistent irrational intertemporal choice is weak.

Le groupe linguistique afro-asiatique occupe un domaine géographique à cheval entre Afrique et Asie, une répartition qui pose la question de la localisation du berceau de cette famille. Linguistique, génétique des populations et archéologie se sont penchées sur cette question sans toutefois parvenir à y répondre. La spécificité des approches de chacune de ces disciplines, ainsi que leur nature interprétative, rendent la question du foyer encore plus complexe et appellent à une reformulation méthodologique de cette problématique. Cet article constitue une réflexion méthodologique sur la problématique de l’évolution d’un phylum linguistique et tente de définir un cadre théorique global pour aborder l’évolution des populations humaines de façon syncrétique, biologique et culturelle à la fois. Nous y présentons une revue critique des approches linguistiques et extra-linguistiques de la question du foyer de l’Afro-Asiatique. Nous proposons une méthodologie unique tenant compte des limites observées dans les approches actuelles et passées sur cette question, de considérations propres à chacune des disciplines concurrentes ainsi que des incidences dues à la nature même des données disponibles.

The Afro-Asiatic linguistic group occupies a geographical zone which straddles two continents, Africa and Asia, a distribution which brings into question the location of this family’s homeland. Linguistics, Population Genetics and Archaeology have tried unsuccessfully to provide an answer, because the specificity and the interpretative nature of their different approaches make the homeland issue even more complex, and calls for reconsideration of the methodology used. This paper is a methodological reflection on the development of a linguistic group and an attempt to define an overall theoretical framework to consider the development of human populations in syncretic, biological and cultural terms. We present here a critical review of the linguistic and extra-linguistic methods applied to the question of an Afro-Asiatic homeland. We propose a single methodology taking into account the limitations observed in past and current works on the subject, the considerations related to each discipline as well as the particular impacts due to the nature of the available data.

Our cognitive abilities make us, humans, a unique phenomenon in the animal kingdom. But what engendered this kind of abilities, allowing us to create such a complex and advanced culture that distinguishes our species from other great apes? According to developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello ("The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition", 1999), the answer to that is social interaction. He argues that this cognitive perfection is a result of our collective intentionality, which enables us to cooperate in complex ways with our conspecifics. This quality led to cumulative cultural learning based on continuous cooperation along many generations, what Tomasello calls "the ratchet effect". However, many of the cognitive skills require time to mature during the lifetime of an individual. In particular, Tomasello emphasizes the significance of discourse interactions with other people during the early development of the child.
In this paper I connect this approach with the fact that many of the discourse interactions in the 21st century, including those of infants and children, are slowly replaced with digital interactions. Face-to-face dialogues are frequently replaced with "one-person dialogues" with her cellular phone or tablet device. I argue that the decrease in dialogue opportunities may have negative effects on certain aspects of the cognitive development in children (beyond language skills). Therefore, I suggest a possible solution, arguing that initiated events of dialogue should be held in schools. I present an example of a curriculum that creates this type of opportunities in school, and show how some of the aspects of the dialogue it promotes are consistent with those considered by Tomasello as crucial for the child's cognitive development.

Special Evolutionary Issue of the online journal Politics and Culture. Edited by Joseph Carroll.

http://politicsandculture.org/2010/04/28/contents-2/

27 essays organized under five headings: (1) The Evolutionary Turn in Psychology and the Humanities; (2) Politics and Ethics; (3) Religion; (4) Literature; and (5) music.

Also, a symposium on the question "How is art biological," with commentaries by seven scholars and with responses from various contributors to each of the commentaries.

Although the theory of memetics appeared highly promising at the beginning, it is no longer considered a scientific theory among contemporary evolutionary scholars. This study aims to compare the genealogy of memetics with the historically more successful gene-culture coevolution theory. This comparison is made in order to determine the constraints that emerged during the internal development of the memetics theory that could bias memeticists to work on the ontology of meme units as opposed to hypotheses testing, which was adopted by the gene-culture scholars. I trace this problem back to the diachronic development of memetics to its origin in the gene-centered anti-group-selectionist argument of George C. Williams and Richard Dawkins. The strict adoption of this argument predisposed memeticists with the a priori idea that there is no evolution without discrete units of selection, which in turn, made them dependent on the principal separation of biological and memetic fitness. This separation thus prevented memeticists from accepting an adaptationist view of culture which, on the contrary, allowed gene-culture theorists to attract more scientists to test the hypotheses, creating the historical success of the gene-culture coevolution theory.

We explore contemporary evolutionary perspectives on children’s psychological development, questioning the view that high-fidelity, inter-individual transmission of information explains the cumulative character of human cultures, and children’s ontogenesis within these cultures. We argue that humans construct an environmental niche that is unique in being composed of institutions, which function to coordinate activity over multiple time scales. Institutions involve not simply customs or conventions but a deontology of future-binding rights, responsibilities, duties, and obligations. The origins of institutions can be traced in hominin evolution to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, where kinship, the first institution, made possible community support of an extended and demanding form of ontogenesis. Since the human environmental niche is an institutional reality, children today need to acquire the ability to understand and act effectively within institutions. We propose that this ability emerges not as an adaptation solely to past conditions but through differentiation and reintegration of an ‘extended ontogenetic system’ of which the child is a constituent, leading to a quality of self-consciousness on the part of the child that makes possible the ability to live in an institutional reality.

The main question posed in the article is, was the historical development of the novel characterized by an increase in the quantity of dialogues? To test whether this is true, the author conducted a quantitative study of four hundred Russian novels of the nineteenth century. Using the " coefficient of dialogic liveliness " — a measure suggested by Boris Yarkho in the 1930s — this article suggests an answer in the affirmative. In addition, it attempts to answer three subsequent questions: (1) Why did the number of dialogues increase? (2) Why was this increase not linear? (3) Why did some of the highly dialogic Russian novels appear already at the beginning of the nineteenth century? The first problem is explained by some psychological features of readers' perceptions of dialogues. The second problem is answered by the theory of evolution. The third problem is solved by a brief analysis of the historical context of the epoch.

Scholars of cultural evolution and change have tended to conceptualize innovation as a process that results from individual experimentation involving random or very loosely guided trial-and-error alterations to existing cultural elements. Alternatively, they have focused on individual experimentation via decision rules and different heuristics with already existing, potentially innovative cultural elements whose emergence is left unexplained. Based on ethnographic fieldwork I conducted with a number of business innovation consultancy groups in the United States, I theorize institutionalized innovation as a new engine of cultural evolution that might be unique to complex industrial societies characterized by intense intragroup competition that puts pressure on constant innovation. This engine might be responsible for a faster pace of cultural evolution. At stake is a systematic strategy of purposeful innovation that is neither entirely random nor entirely calculation based. Rather, it is based in the rationalized and rule-governed production of what I call “structured contingency,” and it is capable of being applied to products and services across different business domains, including to itself.

The abundant evidence that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa within the past 200,000 years, and dispersed across the world only within the past 100,000 years, provides us with a strong framework in which to consider the evolution of human diversity. While there is evidence that the human capacity for culture has a deeper history, going beyond the origin of the hominin clade, the tendency for humans to form cultures as part of being distinct communities and populations changed markedly with the evolution of H. sapiens. In this paper, we investigate 'cultures' as opposed to 'culture', and the question of how and why, compared to biological diversity, human communities and populations are so culturally diverse. We consider the way in which the diversity of human cultures has developed since 100,000 years ago, and how its rate was subject to environmental factors. We argue that the causes of this diversity lie in the distribution of resources and the way in which human communities reproduce over several generations, leading to fissioning of kin groups. We discuss the consequences of boundary formation through culture in their broader ecological and evolutionary contexts.

This article presents a study about cultural algorithms which are considered as a computational model of cultural evolution process. This evolution can be understood as a process of inheritance in the micro- and macro-evolutionary levels. At the first level, behavioral traits are passed on generation-to-generation by genetic operators. At the second level, individuals experience are generalized in maps, which are grouped together to form a space of beliefs of the population. A brief discussion of the potential of this sort of algorithm is presented in this paper.

This article maps some key patterns associated with how internet memes are conceived and how online meme practices have evolved and morphed during the period from 2000 to the present. We document the rise of internet memes during their early years as a broadly communitarian cultural engagement, mostly characterized by goodwill, humor, and an often “nerdish” sense of shared cultural identity. With the massification of internet access and participation in online social practices employing Web 2.0 and mobile computing capacities, changes occurred in how internet memes were conceived and created (e.g., image macro-generators). Since around 2012, many online meme practices have become intensely politicized and increasingly used for socially divisive and, often, cruel purposes. We explore some of these shifts and argue that what we call “second wave” online memes have been used as weapons in personal, political, and socialcultural wars. We conclude that internet memes scholarship would benefit from revisiting the original conception and theory of memes advanced by Richard Dawkins, and attending closely to what motivated Dawkins in this work.

Stefano Zenni
Conservatorio di Bologna e New York University

Conferenza con ascolti musicali
Lunedì 12 marzo, ore 14:30 Auditorium (U12), via Vizzola 5

Abstract
Il jazz è una musica nata ed evolutasi per effetto dalle migrazioni: di individui (schiavi e liberi), strumenti, stili, idee, libri, supporti tecnologici. Musica geografica, di comunità e culture che si spostano da un continente all'altro o da un quartiere all'altro di una città. La geografia e lo studio delle diaspore ci consentono di comprendere più a fondo le origini molteplici del jazz e le dinamiche che ne hanno consentito una diffusione globale. Con l'ausilio di mappe, cartine e numerosi ascolti, Stefano Zenni ci introduce ad una nuova visione globale del jazz.

Discussant:
Fulvio Carmagnola, Università di Milano Bicocca
Paolo Manasse, Università di Bologna

La conferenza inaugura il progetto CISEPS “La diffusione dei tratti culturali”, che mira a innescare dibattiti interdisciplinari mettendo in evidenza problemi comuni e specificità tra economia, filosofia, antropologia, geografia, storia, biologia e molti altri campi. Pensare in termini di tratti culturali -­‐ caratteristiche che dipendono in qualche misura dall’apprendimento sociale -­‐ non significa voler esaurire i processi culturali, bensì pensare in modo critico modelli e metafore scientifiche per studiare la cultura.
Per saperne di più: cultural.traits@gmail.com

CISEPS
http://dipeco.economia.unimib.it/ciseps/
ciseps@unimib.it

Biogeographers have noted many strong patterns in the diversity and distribution of animal and plant taxa. Human cultural diversity also exhibits strong geographical patterns. Here we
analyse the global distribution of 3814 human cultures in relation to latitude and climatic parameters. The density and diversity of human cultures decline with latitude and increase with temperature and rainfall. Human cultures in tropical, wetter or warmer areas have smaller ranges and are more densely packed and differentiated. These relationships can be documented statistically in ways that parallel species diversity among other organisms. The global nature of these patterns implies ecological equilibrium independent of evolutionary history in different continents. This has implications for the interpretation of human genetic diversity, as well as for the understanding of processes of human cultural diversification and their relationship to evolutionary and ecological mechanisms.

From you to eternity and consciously back in an infinite/eternal stand still hypersphere

To show you how unconsciously unconscious you are, I'll just begin with asking rhetorically what you know about your dreams, that constitute the great majority of your mind’s lifetime. Basically nothing …

Then I’ll proceed by showing that you are totally unable to make yourself really understood by anybody: Direct conscious communication without contextual triangulation and observe monopoly cooperation zero.

Now think of the media Putin, Mussolini, Salvini, etc.  and that you do not understand that they are not real characters but only your unconsciously unconscious media projections, of whose reality you know nothing.

Geometry (trigonometry) shows us how to infer a segment by knowing an angle and a side within a circle ⭕️

From this you can project your conscious consciousness on the entire universe by extending the idea that at any radius a sphere also has the same number of points.

This "conscious" conceptual extension can probably be extended to space-time through Lorentz transformations.

Finally - and relatively to Einstein’s happiest thought that everything is “moving” in a (ndr: evolutionary, adaptive, antropologicaMindly) flexible space time with reference to a standstill inertial ALL ON ALL POV - consider that C stands “also” for consciousness:)

PS: To verify you can ConsciousMindly”  "integrate" that your unconscious unconsciousness follows from Gödel's incompleteness, that McLuhan explains your media mirage with the medium = message and that ultra-Darwinism includes "technology" in human evolution, such as any material culture and language.

Da te all'eternità e torna consapevolmente in un'infinita/eterna ipersfera ferma

Per mostrarti quanto sei inconsciamente incosciente, inizierò semplicemente chiedendo retoricamente cosa sai dei tuoi sogni, che costituiscono la grande maggioranza della vita della tua mente.  Praticamente niente…

Poi procederò mostrando che sei totalmente incapace di farti capire davvero da nessuno: comunicazione diretta cosciente, senza triangolazione contestuale e cooperazione dell’osservatore cosciente monopolistica, zero. 

Ora pensa ai mediatici Putin, Mussolini, salvini ecc. e che non capisci che non sono personaggi reali ma solo tue proiezioni mediatiche inconsciamente inconsce, della cui realtà non sai nulla.

La geometria (trigonometria) ci mostra come dedurre un segmento conoscendo un angolo e un lato all'interno di un cerchio ⭕️

Da ciò puoi proiettare la tua coscienza cosciente sull'intero universo estendendo l'idea che in qualsiasi raggio anche una sfera abbia lo stesso numero di punti.

Questa estensione concettuale “consapevole” può essere verosimilMente estesa allo spazio tempo attraverso le trasformazioni di Lorentz.

Infine - e relativamente al pensiero più felice di Einstein che tutto è "in movimento" in uno spazio-tempo (ndr: evolutivo, adattivo, antropologico) flessibile con riferimento a uno stallo inerziale ALL ON ALL POV - si consideri che C sta anche per coscienza:)

PS: per verificare puoi coscienteMente “integrare” che la tua incosciente incoscienza consegue dell'incompletezza di Gödel, che McLuhan spiega il tuo miraggio dei media con il mezzo=messaggio e che l’ultradarwinismo include la “tecnologia” nell’evoluzione umana, come qualsiasi cultura materiale e linguaggio.

Авторы теории последовательности человеческого развития Р. Инглхарт и К. Вельцель утверждают, что модернизация является одним из основных процессов, формирующих ценностные установки населения. В статье исследуется соотношение
ценностей и модернизации с использованием некоторых элементов методики Инглхарта и Вельцеля на данных Ш. Шварца. В обследовании Шварца выделяются две основные оси ценностей: «сохранение — открытость к изменениям» и «забота о лю-дях — самоутверждение». Нами выявлена разная направленность корреляций между этими двумя ценностными осями в западном мире (включающем страны Европы и бывшие переселенческие колонии обеих Америк и Океании) и афразийском мире.
Действительно, в обоих макрорегионах модернизация (аппроксимируемая через такие показатели, как ВВП на душу населения и доли занятых по секторам экономики)
сопровождается уменьшением ценностей сохранения и ростом ценностей открытости к изменениям, но в западном мире рост открытости сопровождается ростом заботы об окружении, а в афразийском мире — ростом самоутверждения. Мы выдвигаем две гипотезы, позволяющие объяснить противоположную направленность корреляций в данных макрорегионах — нахождение на разных стадиях модернизации и различие в цивилизационных паттернах. Дальнейший анализ показывает, что
обнаруженное различие между Европой и Востоком можно объяснить через стадиальный фактор лишь очень частично. В значительно большей степени речь, видимо,
идет о различных цивилизационных паттернах модернизации ценностей.

Since its inception, the universe has evolved towards increasing complexity due to entropy and natural forces. Once the universe was cooled sufficiently by its expansion, “free-living” particles united to form hydrogen atoms. Gravity united matter into compact, high-energy formations (stars). Conditions within the first generation of stars drove the formation of more complex elements. The existence of these elements allowed the creation of planetary systems. Favourable conditions on Earth and the diversity of elements enabled the creation of further complexity in the form of life. This complexity has not evolved in a linear manner but in leaps towards higher levels. Emergence of each new level, or “universal state”, depends on a universal qualitative change: a “universal transition”. On Earth, life inherited this tendency of evolution towards complexity by uniting matter in increasing levels of individuality, from organic molecules to molecular complexes, cells, multicellularity, and complex populations. The emergence of a new level is allowed by “scale constraints”, which prevent eternal accumulation of complexity at lower levels, forcing the systems towards a new higher-level, i.e., the occurrence of an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI). In humans, sociocultural and technological evolution may be guiding our species to a transition towards a global superorganism.

Some researchers have claimed that chimpanzee and human culture rest on homologous cognitive and learning mechanisms. While clearly there are some homologous mechanisms, we argue here that there are some different mechanisms at work as well. Chimpanzee cultural traditions represent behavioural biases of different populations, all within the species’ existing cognitive repertoire (what we call the ‘zone of latent solutions’) that are generated by founder effects, individual learning and
mostly product-oriented (rather than process-oriented) copying. Human culture, in contrast, has the distinctive characteristic that it accumulates modifications over time (what we call the ‘ratchet effect’). This difference results from the facts that (i) human social learning is more oriented towards process than product and (ii) unique forms of human cooperation lead to active teaching, social motivations for conformity and normative sanctions against non-conformity. Together, these unique processes of social learning and cooperation lead to humans’ unique form of cumulative
cultural evolution.

_The Physiology of Love and Other Writings_ is the first English annotated collection of Mantegazza’s selected works. In my extensive introductory essay, Mantegazza’s hybrid contributions from fiction, travel-writing, and ethnography to physiology, medicine, and politics are reevaluated as instances of a proto-cultural-studies approach attuned to the cross-fertilization of disciplines and the circulation of ideas in a period of European intellectual history that defied the notion of specialization.
Table of contents:
The Physiology of Love
And Selections from:
On The Hygienic and Medicinal Virtues of the Coca Plant and on Nervine Nourishment in General
One Day in Madeira
A Voyage to Lapland with my Friend Stephen Sommier
India
Epicurus: Essay in a Physiology of the Beautiful
The Neurosic Century
The Tartuffe Century
Head: Or, Sowing Ideas to Create New Deeds
Political Memoirs of a Foot Soldier in the Italian Parliament
The Year 3000: A Dream
The Psychology of Translation