From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!trwacs!erwin Wed Sep 16 21:23:01 EDT 1992
Article 6879 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!trwacs!erwin
>From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness
Keywords: cognition free-will
Message-ID: <718@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
Date: 11 Sep 92 14:07:20 GMT
References: <705@trwacs.fp.trw.com> <1992Sep04.093530.16078@sco.COM>
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA
Lines: 18

You comment that memes evolve by Lamarckian evolution. I tend to agree,
although the cultural stasis seen prior to the Upper Paleolithic suggests
to me that genus Homo had to evolve some interesting processes in the
frontal cortex before s/he could be culturally innovative. I don't know
whether it was speech that was required, or a chaotic innovative process
in the frontal cortex, or (as I suspect) a combination of the two, but
prior to the U. P., human culture was _static_.

(Question for the anthropologists: how innovative are the chimpanzee
cultures?)

I also suspect that human social groups are cognitive units, and that
there has been significant evolution at that level.

Cheers,
-- 
Harry Erwin
Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com


