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The emergence and evolution of integrated worldviews Gabora, Liane; Diederik, Aerts

Abstract

It is proposed that the ability of humans to flourish in diverse environments and evolve complex cultures reflects the following two underlying cognitive transitions. The transition from the coarse-grained associative memory of Homo habilis to the fine-grained memory of Homo erectus enabled limited representational redescription of perceptually similar episodes, abstraction, and analytic thought, the last of which is modeled as the formation of states and of lattices of properties and contexts for concepts. The transition to the modern mind of Homo sapiens is proposed to have resulted from onset of the capacity to spontaneously and temporarily shift to an associative mode of thought conducive to interaction amongst seemingly disparate concepts, modeled as the forging of conjunctions resulting in states of entanglement. The fruits of associative thought became ingredients for analytic thought, and vice versa. The ratio of associative pathways to concepts surpassed a percolation threshold resulting in the emergence of a self-modifying, integrated internal model of the world, or worldview.

Item Metadata

Title
The emergence and evolution of integrated worldviews
Creator
Gabora, Liane; Diederik, Aerts
Publisher
Elsevier
Date Issued
2009-10
Description
It is proposed that the ability of humans to flourish in diverse environments and evolve complex cultures reflects the following two underlying cognitive transitions. The transition from the coarse-grained associative memory of Homo habilis to the fine-grained memory of Homo erectus enabled limited representational redescription of perceptually similar episodes, abstraction, and analytic thought, the last of which is modeled as the formation of states and of lattices of properties and contexts for concepts. The transition to the modern mind of Homo sapiens is proposed to have resulted from onset of the capacity to spontaneously and temporarily shift to an associative mode of thought conducive to interaction amongst seemingly disparate concepts, modeled as the forging of conjunctions resulting in states of entanglement. The fruits of associative thought became ingredients for analytic thought, and vice versa. The ratio of associative pathways to concepts surpassed a percolation threshold resulting in the emergence of a self-modifying, integrated internal model of the world, or worldview.
Subject
cognitive development; concepts; context; cultural evolution; entanglement; evolutionary psychology; conceptual integraton; quantum interaction; SCOP formalism; worldview
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2018-03-05
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0364141
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64736
Affiliation
Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan); Non UBC; Psychology, Department of (Okanagan)
Citation
Gabora, L., & Aerts, D. (2009). A model of the emergence and evolution of integrated worldviews. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 53, 434-451.
Publisher DOI
10.1016/j.jmp.2009.06.004
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository
DSpace

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International