Cultural Evolution Entails (Creativity Entails (Concept Combination Entails Quantum Structure))
Liane Gabora

TL;DR
This paper proposes a quantum-inspired framework for understanding cultural evolution, emphasizing the role of concept combination and entanglement in cognitive processes, challenging traditional models in cognitive science.
Contribution
It introduces the CAP and SCOP formalisms, applying quantum structures to model cultural and cognitive evolution, especially concept combination and insight.
Findings
Concept combination modeled as quantum entanglement.
Challenges to spreading activation and Kolmogorovian probability models.
Empirical evidence supporting quantum-inspired cognitive models.
Abstract
The theory of natural selection cannot describe how early life evolved, in part because acquired characteristics are passed on through horizontal exchange. It has been proposed that culture, like life, began with the emergence of autopoietic form, thus its evolution too cannot be described by natural selection. The evolution of autopoietic form can be described using a framework referred to as Context-driven Actualization of Potential (CAP), which grew out of a generalization of the formalisms of quantum mechanics, and encompasses nondeterministic as well as deterministic change of state. The autopoietic structure that evolves through culture is the mind, or more accurately the conceptual network that yields an individual's internal model of the world. A branch of CAP research referred to as the state-context-property (SCOP) formalism provides a mathematical framework for reconciling…
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Taxonomy
TopicsUniversity-Industry-Government Innovation Models · Scientific Research and Philosophical Inquiry · Language, Communication, and Linguistic Studies
