A model of the emergence and evolution of integrated worldviews

TL;DR

This paper presents a cognitive model explaining how humans evolved complex, integrated worldviews through two key cognitive transitions involving memory refinement and the development of associative and analytic thought.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework modeling the emergence of integrated worldviews via cognitive transitions from early hominins to modern humans.

Findings

Cognitive transitions enabled the development of complex worldviews.

Associative and analytic thought modes interact to produce integrated mental models.

The emergence of worldviews is modeled as a percolation threshold in cognitive pathways.

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.