How do cultures change over time? We look at the framework of cultural evolution, picking apart some of its aspects and trying to build a framework we can both agree on. We look at how you can take a systems level approach of looking at culture, which is looking at the mechanisms of culture itself, or a component level approach, which looks at individual belief dynamics.
Show Notes:
Complexity of Cultural Evolution: Exploring the intricacies of cultural evolution as akin to Darwinian evolution, focusing on variability, inheritance, and differential fitness in cultural change and emphasizing the non-Mendelian inheritance and biased mutations unique to cultural evolution.
Defining Culture: Outlining the concept of culture as socially transmitted information, highlighting its transmission both horizontally among peers and vertically across generations, and introducing dual inheritance theory as a framework for understanding cultural propagation.
Beliefs in Cultural Evolution: The critical role of beliefs within cultural evolution, noting their significance alongside technological innovations in driving cultural shifts and how beliefs' adaptiveness is contingent upon the social context.
Adaptive vs. Meta Beliefs: Distinguishing between adaptive beliefs (directly beneficial within a specific context) and meta beliefs (about the adaptiveness of other beliefs), illustrating meta beliefs' importance in navigating various social environments for long-term survival.
Social Signaling and Belief Spread: Discussing how social signaling and the prominence of certain individuals influence the adoption and transmission of beliefs, reflecting on cultural trends driven by perceived competence or status within a group.
Persistence and Evolution of Cultural Trends: Analyzing why some cultural movements fade while others endure, suggesting that movements with a clear ideology or that evolve into broader political or social statements have more lasting impacts.
Challenges of Studying Cultural Evolution: Acknowledging the complexity and challenges in understanding cultural evolution, focusing on the differential fitness of beliefs and the evolution of cultural traits in response to environmental and social changes.
Complexity of Semantic Understanding: The complexity involved in achieving mutual understanding of semantics, proposing that individual cognition shapes the interpretation of language and concepts, which impacts cultural transmission and evolution.
Influence of Messengers and Memes: The role of recognizable figures in shaping cultural trends and the concept of memes as self-replicating units of culture, discussing how cultural elements spread and change across contexts.
Adaptiveness of Cultural Beliefs: Exploring the adaptiveness of specific cultural beliefs within various social contexts, and how beliefs about others' beliefs offer a strategic advantage in a broader range of environments.
Cultural Evolution's Broader Implications: Delving into the broader implications of cultural evolution for understanding human society, including how cultural dynamics reflect and influence the social, political, and ideological landscapes.
References
Cultural Evolution: Compared to Darwinian evolution, focusing on variability, inheritance, and differential fitness.
Culture: Defined as socially transmitted information.
Dual Inheritance Theory: Framework for understanding cultural propagation through horizontal (among peers) and vertical (across generations) transmission.
Beliefs: Highlighted for their role in cultural evolution alongside technological innovations.
Adaptive Beliefs: Beliefs directly beneficial within a specific context.
Meta Beliefs: Beliefs about the adaptiveness of other beliefs.
Social Signaling: How social signaling and status influence belief adoption and transmission.
Ideology: Suggested as a factor for the persistence of cultural movements.
Semantic Understanding: Complexity in achieving mutual understanding of language and concepts.
Messengers and Memes: Role of recognizable figures in cultural trends and the concept of memes.
Darwinian Evolution: Referenced in comparison to cultural evolution.
Mendelian Inheritance: Noted as not applicable to cultural evolution.
Mutation: Mentioned in the context of non-random mutations unique to cultural evolution.
Social Context: Discussed in relation to the adaptiveness of beliefs.
Charles Darwin: Implicitly referenced through the discussion of Darwinian evolution.
Richard Dawkins: Mentioned in relation to the concept of memes.
Population Genetics: Referenced in the context of modeling cultural evolution.
Boyd and Richerson: Suggested through the discussion of modeling in cultural evolution (though not directly named, their work is central to the field).
Active Inference: Discussed as a theory explaining how biological life maintains information.
Thermodynamics: Mentioned in relation to the laws governing systems and entropy.
Epigenetics: Implicitly referenced through discussion of individual-level dynamics in evolution.
Niche Construction: Concept discussed in relation to both biological and social environments.