Mental evolution: a review of Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back

From Bacteria To Bach and Back is an ambitious book that attempts to integrate a theory about the evolution of the human mind with another theory about the evolution of human culture. It is advertised as a defense of memes, but conceptualizes memes more liberally than has been done before. It is also advertised as a defense of the proposal that natural selection operates on culture, but conceptualizes natural selection as a process in which nearly all interesting parameters are free to vary. This liberal conception of key concepts creates space for philosophical innovation, but occasionally makes the empirical content of the theory difficult to pin down. Nevertheless, the book is full of scientific insight, wit, and humor. It will undoubtedly become a cause of both controversy and inspiration for those interested in naturalistic theories of human culture

Survival of the Fittest and Zero Sum Games

Competition for available resources is natural amongst coexisting species, and the fittest contenders dominate over the rest in evolution. The dynamics of this selection is studied using a simple linear model. It has similarities to features of quantum computation, in particular conservation laws leading to destructive interference. Compared to an altruistic scenario, competition introduces instability and eliminates the weaker species in a finite time.Comment: 6 pages, formatted according to journal style. Special Issue on Game Theory and Evolutionary Processes. (v2) Published version. Some clarifications added. Topological interpretation pointed ou

Sociobiology, universal Darwinism and their transcendence: An investigation of the history, philosophy and critique of Darwinian paradigms, especially gene-Darwinism, process-Darwinism, and their types of reductionism towards a theory of the evolution of evolutionary processes, evolutionary freedom and ecological idealism

Based on a review of different Darwinian paradigms, particularly sociobiology, this work, both, historically and philosophically, develops a metaphysic of gene-Darwinism and process-Darwinism, and then criticises and transcends these Darwinian paradigms in order to achieve a truly evolutionary theory of evolution. Part I introduces essential aspects of current sociobiology as the original challenge to this investigation. The claim of some sociobiologists that ethics should become biologized in a gene-egoistic way, is shown to be tied to certain biological views, which ethically lead to problematic results. In part II a historical investigation into sociobiology and Darwinism in general provides us, as historical epistemology', with a deeper understanding of the structure and background of these approaches. Gene-Darwinism, which presently dominates sociobiology and is linked to Dawkins' selfish gene view of evolution, is compared to Darwin's Darwinism and the evolutionary' synthesis and becomes defined more strictly. An account of the external history of Darwinism and its subparadigms shows how cultural intellectual presuppositions, like Malthusianism or the Newtonian concept of the unchangeable laws of nature, also influenced biological theory' construction. In part III universal 'process-Darwinism' is elaborated based on the historical interaction of Darwinism with non-biological subject areas. Building blocks for this are found in psychology, the theory of science and economics. Additionally, a metaphysical argument for the universality of process- Darwinism, linked to Hume's and Popper's problem of induction, is proposed. In part IV gene-Darwinism and process-Darwinism are criticised. Gene-Darwinism—despite its merits—is challenged as being one-sided in advocating 'gene-atomism', 'germ-line reductionism' and 'process-monism'. My alternative proposals develop and try to unify different criticisms often found. In respect of gene-atomism I advocate a many-level approach, opposing the necessary radical selfishness of single genes. I develop the concept of higher-level genes, propose a concept of systemic selection, which may stabilise group properties, without relying on permanent group selection and extend the applicability of a certain group selectionist model generally to small open groups. Proposals of mine linked to the critique of germ-line reductionism are: 'exformation', phenotypes as evolutionary factors and a field theoretic understanding of causa formalis (resembling Aristotelian hylemorphism). Finally the process-monism of gene-Darwinism, process-Darwinism and, if defined strictly, Darwinism in general is criticised. 1 argue that our ontology and ethics would be improved by replacing the Newtoman-Paleyian deist metaphor of an eternal and unchangeable law of nature, which lies at tire very heart of Darwinism, by a truly evolutionary understanding of evolution where new processes may gain a certain autonomy. All this results in a view that I call 'ecological idealism', which, although still very much based on Darwinism, clearly transcends a Darwinian world view

Evolution and Culture

The goal of cross-cultural psychology to identify and explain similarities and differences in the behavior of individuals in different cultures requires linking human behavior to its context (Cole, Meshcheryakov & Ponomariov, 2011). In order to specify this relation, the focus is usually on the sociocultural environment and how it interacts with behavior. Since cross-cultural psychology also deals with the evolutionary and biological bases of behavior, this focus on culture has regularly led to an unbalanced view (Berry, Poortinga, Breugelmans, Chasiotis & Sam, 2011). Too often, biology and culture are seen as opposites: what is labeled as cultural is not biological and what is labeled as biological is not cultural (Chasiotis, 2010, 2011a). This article will first introduce the central concepts of natural and sexual selection, adaptation, and the epigenetic (open) genetic processes in evolutionary biology, and indicate their psychological implications. It will then argue that biology and culture are intricately related. Finally, empirical evidence from diverse psychological research areas will be presented to illustrate why the study of the evolutionary basis is as essential as the analysis of the sociocultural context for the understanding of behavior. Due to space restrictions, cultural transmission will be the only research area which is addressed in more detail (more examples of evolutionary approaches in intelligence, personality, and behavior genetics and their implications for cross-cultural research can be found on the website accompanying Berry et al., 2011; see also further readings section)

How to shift bias: Lessons from the Baldwin effect

An inductive learning algorithm takes a set of data as input and generates a hypothesis as output. A set of data is typically consistent with an infinite number of hypotheses; therefore, there must be factors other than the data that determine the output of the learning algorithm. In machine learning, these other factors are called the bias of the learner. Classical learning algorithms have a fixed bias, implicit in their design. Recently developed learning algorithms dynamically adjust their bias as they search for a hypothesis. Algorithms that shift bias in this manner are not as well understood as classical algorithms. In this paper, we show that the Baldwin effect has implications for the design and analysis of bias shifting algorithms. The Baldwin effect was proposed in 1896, to explain how phenomena that might appear to require Lamarckian evolution (inheritance of acquired characteristics) can arise from purely Darwinian evolution. Hinton and Nowlan presented a computational model of the Baldwin effect in 1987. We explore a variation on their model, which we constructed explicitly to illustrate the lessons that the Baldwin effect has for research in bias shifting algorithms. The main lesson is that it appears that a good strategy for shift of bias in a learning algorithm is to begin with a weak bias and gradually shift to a strong bias