`Toward an Scientific Framework for the Origin of Evolutionary Processes: Biological and Cultural

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This research will explore how evolutionary processes get established using models that describe the origins of biological and cultural evolution, capturing their abstract structure. Although culture exhibits cumulative, adaptive, open-ended change, i.e., it evolves, there is no accepted theory of how it evolves. My team will mathematically model cognitive transitions underlying the emergence of cultural evolution, adapting a framework that is used to model the origin of life.***When catalytic molecules interact their diversity increases, and so does the probability that some subset reaches a critical point where there is a catalytic pathway to every member. This phase transition is referred to as autocatalytic closure because although no molecule self-catalyzes, they collectively catalyze each other. I posit a similar phase transition, referred to as conceptual closure, can explain emergence of the kind of cognitive structure that enabled complex culture, and that it involved two transitions.***The first was onset of the capacity for recursive restructuring of mental representations of knowledge and experience. This plays the role of catalytic reactions in origin of life models. It resulted in localized clusters of connectivity amongst representations nearby in semantic space.***The second transition was onset of the capacity to spontaneously shift between a convergent mode of thought conducive to rote tasks and a divergent mode conducive to insight. Divergent thought is modelled as increased reactivity amongst representations. It enables associations to form between semantically distant representations. This makes it inevitable that representations diversify and some subset reaches a critical point where there is a catalytic pathway' to every member. These two transitions resulted in the integrated cognitive structure that can evolve culture.***Since representations are compounds of concepts, to model reactions' between representations during recursive restructuring I will use an established theory of concept interactions that captures their contextual nature. It can also describe interference and entanglement, phenomena observed not just in quantum mechanics but in studies of how people use concepts.***My team will explain these transitions in terms of brain activity, drawing on recent findings in neuroscience. We will compare and contrast the origins of biological and cultural evolution. These processes present intriguing parallels and differences. We will develop an integrated theoretical framework for how evolutionary processes get established and abstract its algorithmic structure.***This research will help explain the uniquely human ability to evolve complex culture, and could help us recognize evolutionary processes elsewhere in the universe. Trainees will gain vast interdisciplinary knowledge and skills that enhance critical thinking and knowledge communication, preparing them to contribute in diverse and innovative ways to Canada's economy.