Culture and Evolution

Aug 28 2005   Dov, in Brights forum.

Dear GPJ,

1) Entered location in my profile (Glory-of-Sharon, Israel).

2) My quoted statement, about culture functioning for humans like biology for cells, contains indeed claims that need explaining. And indeed with your posting you have started the explanation very well.

You write: "In what way is Earth life fractal? I grant you that trees and corals and aspects of the human body like the respiratory system and probably the nervous system exhibit fractal-like structures (i.e. similar structures recur at different scales). Also the branching paths of evolutionary development probably form similar patterns. But what has all this to do with culture? In saying that culture functions like biological systems, presumably you mean that ideas evolve and survive if they are proved effective in enhancing human srvival and reproduction, in the same way that biological changes evolve? "

And when you write "this is another big claim that needs proof" you proceed with the good reference to "…the mechanism that culls…ideas, by analogy with natural selection".

I therefore wonder why you say "it seems to me that there is no such mechanism". Ideas come into existence and persist in the minds of humans and exist as long as they are remembered in the minds of humans. In your words "it is very difficlt to eradicate them. They persist. They become habits and traditions."

You are describing Evolution. Culture in all its aspects is plainly a form of means/tools for survival/proliferation of humans. It is one of the fractal elements of Earth life in the case of humans. To me this conception and realization is a "spiritual exhilaration" and a world-view life-view mind-opener.

Dov