{"title":"What Sort of Mind/Brain Is Compatible with Cultural Adaptation?","authors":"Peter J. Richerson, Robert T. Boyd","doi":"10.1163/15685373-12340141","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Cultural evolution is substantially driven by agentic forces and rather less by the random variation and natural selection that dominate the evolution of genes. Reinforcement based decisions (attractors) keep cultural evolution tolerably on track of genetic fitness. Reinforcement can come from a variety of proximate mechanisms ranging from rather general-purpose appetites and emotions to highly specific cognitive features. Cognitive features must be substantially built by social and individual learning to be compatible with the vast cultural diversity we observe in space and over time. At the same time gene-based components of reinforcement keep culture generally on track of genetic fitness. This essay asks whether the available neuroscientific evidence on brain function is more compatible with this cultural niche hypothesis or the much more directly gene-based cognitive niche alternative. Future neuroscience may provide a complete proximate account of the biological foundations of culture.</p>","PeriodicalId":46186,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Cognition and Culture","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340141","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Cultural evolution is substantially driven by agentic forces and rather less by the random variation and natural selection that dominate the evolution of genes. Reinforcement based decisions (attractors) keep cultural evolution tolerably on track of genetic fitness. Reinforcement can come from a variety of proximate mechanisms ranging from rather general-purpose appetites and emotions to highly specific cognitive features. Cognitive features must be substantially built by social and individual learning to be compatible with the vast cultural diversity we observe in space and over time. At the same time gene-based components of reinforcement keep culture generally on track of genetic fitness. This essay asks whether the available neuroscientific evidence on brain function is more compatible with this cultural niche hypothesis or the much more directly gene-based cognitive niche alternative. Future neuroscience may provide a complete proximate account of the biological foundations of culture.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Cognition and Culture provides an interdisciplinary forum for exploring the mental foundations of culture and the cultural foundations of mental life. The primary focus of the journal is on explanations of cultural phenomena in terms of acquisition, representation and transmission involving cognitive capacities without excluding the study of cultural differences. The journal contains articles, commentaries, reports of experiments, and book reviews that emerge out of the inquiries by, and conversations between, scholars in experimental psychology, developmental psychology, social cognition, neuroscience, human evolution, cognitive science of religion, and cognitive anthropology.