Synthesizing Complexity in Anthropology: Evolving
Cultural Things-That-Think.
A model is presented demonstrating the synthesis of cultural
things-that-think in the context of evaluating arguments on kinship systems.
It explores the claim that they reduce the cognitive load on (and increase
the computational efficiency of) individuals, enabling them to keep track
of a small number of kin, rather than keeping track of everyone. An
artificial culture is seeded with a population of individuals, each with
the properties of age, sex and parentage. Each is situated discretely
in both space (in a household and camp) and time. Each has four
potentially interrelated goal domains: food, shelter, protection and
reproduction, which in combination constitute its fitness. Goals may
be met by negotiating transactions with different sets of individuals, implementing
different strategies, which are synthesized and mediated by evolved beliefs
and plans. Beliefs and plans arise from the perceptions of the local
environment mediated by evolved categories. These may include basic
kinship system (with its associated privileges and obligations), and also
the theories of mind, behaviors and credit ratings of other individuals.
Information may be observed either first-hand or acquired from other individuals
by exchange, in which case the source of that information is noted.
Each goal domain evolves separately, and associated beliefs, strategies,
plans and actions for each domain may remain distinct. Stress, arising
from cooperation and competition, is calculated with a payoff matrix from
the Prisoner’s Dilemma. This structure, should produce complex interactions
within and among these domains as characteristically different representations
come into play. It should also provide a framework in which the role
of kinship systems in human culture may be investigated. Other factors
may include psychological bonds genetically prescribed and procedures for
rewarding cooperators and deterring defectors. Emergences may crosscut
domain boundaries and thereby build modular structures by analogy.
Nicholas Gessler
University in California in Los Angeles
Human Complex Systems Center
gessler@ucla.edu