This article offers a post-pedagogical image of universities. We explore two main purposes of university education: creating an educated public and preparing learners for their future careers. This exploration draws on philosophers Barnett, MacIntyre and Nussbaum. We then utilise a series of reports from The Foundation for Young Australians to offer insights into the changing nature of society, technology, and worklife. The evolution of models or theories of learning sets the scene for the framework for how to structure (...) the future university—a post-pedagogical learning institution in which educators are learning specialists, learners are engaged in meaningful and critical thinking, learning and acting. (shrink)

This paper explores how an evolutionary process can produce systems that learn. A general framework for the evolution of learning is outlined, and is applied to the task of evolving mechanisms suitable for supervised learning in single-layer neural networks. Dynamic properties of a network’s information-processing capacity are encoded genetically, and these properties are subjected to selective pressure based on their success in producing adaptive behavior in diverse environments. As a result of selection and genetic recombination, various successful (...) learning mechanisms evolve, including the well-known delta rule. The effect of environmental diversity on the evolution of learning is investigated, and the role of different kinds of emergent phenomena in genetic and connectionist systems is discussed. (shrink)

A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition from organisms that lacked consciousness to those with consciousness—to minimal subjective experiencing, or, as Aristotle described it, “the sensitive soul”? In this book, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka propose a new theory about the origin of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the transition to basic consciousness. (...) Using a methodology similar to that used by scientists when they identified the transition from non-life to life, Ginsburg and Jablonka suggest a set of criteria, identify a marker for the transition to minimal consciousness, and explore the far-reaching biological, psychological, and philosophical implications. After presenting the historical, neurobiological, and philosophical foundations of their analysis, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose that the evolutionary marker of basic or minimal consciousness is a complex form of associative learning, which they term unlimited associative learning (UAL). UAL enables an organism to ascribe motivational value to a novel, compound, non-reflex-inducing stimulus or action, and use it as the basis for future learning. Associative learning, Ginsburg and Jablonka argue, drove the Cambrian explosion and its massive diversification of organisms. Finally, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose symbolic language as a similar type of marker for the evolutionary transition to human rationality—to Aristotle's “rational soul.”. (shrink)

Why do societies collapse? We use an individual-based evolutionary model to show that, in environmental conditions dominated by low-frequency variation (“red noise”), extirpation may be an outcome of the evolution of cultural capacity. Previous analytical models predicted an equilibrium between individual learners and social learners, or a contingent strategy in which individuals learn socially or individually depending on the circumstances. However, in red noise environments, whose main signature is that variation is concentrated in relatively large, relatively rare excursions, individual (...) learning may be selected from the population. If the social learning system comes to lack sufficient individual learning or cognitively costly adaptive biases, behavior ceases tracking environmental variation. Then, when the environment does change, fitness declines and the population may collapse or even be extirpated. The modeled scenario broadly fits some human population collapses and might also explain nonhuman extirpations. Varying model parameters showed that the fixation of social learning is less likely when individual learning is less costly, when the environment is less red or more variable, with larger population sizes, and when learning is not conformist or is from parents rather than from the general population. Once social learning is fixed, extirpation is likely except when social learning is biased towards successful models. Thus, the risk of population collapse may be reduced by promoting individual learning and innovation over cultural conformity, or by preferential selection of relatively fit individuals as models for social learning. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

It is generally thought that cognition evolved to help us navigate complex environments. Social interactions make up one part of a complex environment, and some have argued that social settings are crucial to the evolution of cognition. This article uses the methods of evolutionary game theory to investigate the effect of social interaction on the evolution of cognition broadly construed as strategic learning or plasticity. I delineate the conditions under which social interaction alone, apart from any additional (...) external environmental variation, can provide the selective pressure necessary for the initial evolution of learning. Furthermore, it is argued that in the context of social interactions we should notexpect traditional learners that ‘best-respond’ to dominate the population. Consequently, it may be important to consider non-traditional learners when modelling social evolution. 1 Introduction2 The Model3 Adapting to the Population3.1 Learning an equlibrium4 Adapting to Individuals4.1 Learning a best response and non-traditional learners5 Conclusion. (shrink)

This article-as part of a broader evolutionary inquiry toward human fulfillment, societal wellbeing, and environmental sustainability-explores new frontiers for business. In a rapidly changing global environment, corporations can become evolutionary change agents for the creation of a sustainable global civilization by fostering financial, social, and environmental results. The contemporary metaphors used to describe the business world can be limited in times when an emergent paradigm calls for new visions and actions. An evolutionary understanding, grounded in evolutionary systems theory, can open (...) possibilities for leadership and innovation toward sustainability. Complex systems, such as organizations, need to learn to learn in harmony with the dynamics of their milieu in order to co-evolve and create value. The paper concludes with a reflection on the implications of the evolutionary paradigm for business education. (shrink)

The paper addresses a central problem in evolutionary biology and cognitive science; evolution of a neural based learning phenotype from a structured genotype. It describes morphogenesis of a neural network-based cognitive system, starting from a single genotype having a modulon control structure. It further shows how such a system, denoted as GALA architecture, growing its own recurrent axon connections, can further develop into various structures capable of learning in different learning modes, such as advice learning, (...) reinforcement learning, and emotion learning. The paper particularly considers the emotion learning systems and their motivational structure. A simulation experiment is provided to illustrate the theoretical issues discussed. (shrink)

Understanding religion requires explaining why supernatural beliefs, devotions, and rituals are both universal and variable across cultures, and why religion is so often associated with both large-scale cooperation and enduring group conflict. Emerging lines of research suggest that these oppositions result from the convergence of three processes. First, the interaction of certain reliably developing cognitive processes, such as our ability to infer the presence of intentional agents, favors—as an evolutionary by-product—the spread of certain kinds of counterintuitive concepts. Second, participation in (...) rituals and devotions involving costly displays exploits various aspects of our evolved psychology to deepen people's commitment to both supernatural agents and religious communities. Third, competition among societies and organizations with different faith-based beliefs and practices has increasingly connected religion with both within-group prosociality and between-group enmity. This connection has strengthened dramatically in recent millennia, as part of the evolution of complex societies, and is important to understanding cooperation and conflict in today's world. (shrink)

This article takes an evolutionary “reverse engineering” standpoint on Homo discens, learning man, to track down the mechanisms that played a pivotal role in the natural selection of human being. The approach is “evolutionary sociological”—as opposed to gene-centred or psychologising—and utilises notions of co-evolutionary organism–environment transactions and niche construction. These are compatible with a Deweyan theory of action, which entails that in action one cannot but learn and one can only learn in action. Special attention is paid to apprentice-like (...) learning-by-doing peculiar to human socio-cultural niches since the Pleistocene, which has permitted each subsequent generation to learn the many habits and skills needed in utilising the affordances of action that constitute their ecological niche. Affordances and actions have changed over the history of human–environment transactions, but the core mechanisms of human learning have not changed much. It is increasingly important to appreciate these mechanisms now in the global age “knowledge society,” which is in a way similar to the Pleistocene era: characterised by uncertainty and life-determining problem-situations without any ready-made solutions, it calls for capacities to adapt to changing circumstances, and thus apprentice-like learning in action supported by savvy epistemological engineering of learning environments. (shrink)

The scientific study of consciousness or subjective experiencing is a rapidly expanding research program engaging philosophers of mind, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neurobiologists, evolutionary biologists and biosemioticians. Here we outline an evolutionary approach that we have developed over the last two decades, focusing on the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to minimally conscious, subjectively experiencing organisms. We propose that the evolution of subjective experiencing was driven by the evolution of learning and we identify an open-ended, representational, generative and recursive (...) form of associative learning, which we call Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL), as an evolutionary transition marker of minimal consciousness. This evolutionary marker provides evidence that the evolutionary transition to consciousness has gone to completion and allows reverse-engineering from this learning capacity to the system that enables it – making possible the construction of a toy model of UAL. The model allows us to identify some of the key processes and structures that constitute minimal consciousness, points its taxonomic distribution and the ecological context in which it first emerged, highlights its function and suggests a framework for exploring developmental and evolutionary modifications of consciousness. We point to ways of experimentally testing the relationship between UAL and consciousness in human and in non-human animals and discuss the theoretical and ethical implications of our approach. The framework we offer allows the exploration of the evolutionary changes in agency, value systems, selective processes and goals that were involved in the transition to subjective experiencing from a perspective that resonates with the approaches of bio-semioticians. (shrink)

Heyes argues that human metacognitive strategies (“cognitive gadgets” or “mills”) are the products of cultural evolution based on domain‐general cognition with few simple biases. Although like Heyes, we believe that the evolution of domain‐general cognitive processes played a crucial role in the evolution of human cognition, we argue that Heyes' distinction between mills and grist is too sharp, that associative learning evolved gradually to become more complex and hierarchical, something that is not captured by the system (...) 1/system 2 distinction, and that human cognitive plasticity required the genetic accommodation of gadget‐specific processes that led to more plasticity‐enhancing human‐specific biases. (shrink)

PARP‐1 is a multifunctional enzyme that can modulate gene expression. Cohen‐Armon et al.1 found that a homologue of PARP‐1 is activated in the Aplysia nervous system as the animal responds to an aversive stimulus, which leads to sensitization, and during a more complex form of learning that involves feeding behavior. Significantly, inhibiting PARP‐1 activation blocked the learning. Several key pathways in Aplysia neurons are activated both during learning and after injury, suggesting that mechanisms of learning evolved (...) from primitive responses to injury. Since PARP‐1 is evolutionarily conserved as a responder to various forms of stress, the finding that PARP‐1 is activated during learning supports this idea. BioEssays 26:1268–1271, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

David Lewis (1969) introduced sender-receiver games as a way of investigating how meaningful language might evolve from initially random signals. In this report I investigate the conditions under which Lewis signaling games evolve to perfect signaling systems under various learning dynamics. While the 2-state/2- term Lewis signaling game with basic urn learning always approaches a signaling system, I will show that with more than two states suboptimal pooling equilibria can evolve. Inhomogeneous state distributions increase the likelihood of pooling (...) equilibria, but learning strategies with negative reinforcement or certain sorts of mutation can decrease the likelihood of, and even eliminate, pooling equilibria. Both Moran and APR learning strategies (Bereby-Meyer and Erev 1998) are shown to promote successful convergence to signaling systems. A model is presented that illustrates how a language that codes state-act pairs in an order-based grammar might evolve in the context of a Lewis signaling game. The terms, grammar, and the corresponding partitions of the state space co-evolve to generate a language whose structure appears to reflect canonical natural kinds. The evolution of these apparent natural kinds, however, is entirely in service of the rewards that accompany successful distinctions between the sender and receiver. Any metaphysics grounded on the structure of a natural language that evolved in this way would track arbitrary, but pragmatically useful distinctions. (shrink)

Meta-learning offers a promising framework to make sense of some parts of decision-making that have eluded satisfactory explanation. Here, we connect this research to work in animal behaviour and cognition in order to shed light on how and whether meta-learning could help us to understand the evolution of cognition.

Humans are uncontroversially better than other species at learning from their peers. A key example of this is imitation, the ability to reproduce both the means and ends of others’ behaviours. Imitation is critical to the acquisition of a number of uniquely human cultural and cognitive traits. However, while authors largely agree on the importance of imitation, they disagree about the origins of imitation in humans. Some argue that imitation is an adaptation, connected to the ‘Mirror Neuron System’ that (...) evolved to facilitate action understanding and the learning of social behaviours. Others argue that imitation is a cultural practice learned in childhood, and that there is no evidence that it evolved genetically. We offer a third alternative that is consistent with both data that the human brain is optimised for imitation, and consistent with its being substantially learned. We hypothesise that at some point in human history humans underwent natural selection for two imitation-relevant abilities – specifically, (i) the tendency to be more attentive to our peers, and (ii) fine motor skill in the manual and oro-facial domains. These changes enabled us to excel at both learning to imitate, and learning by imitating. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 4, April 2022.

The development of educational technologies is enhancing a distinctive feature of learning environments: the learner’s personalized environment. However, the current literature in e-learning seems to neglect an important discussion: will individuals and organizations face an enhancement concerning ethical dilemmas due to this evolution? To promote this discussion, this paper builds on a consideration of e-learning definition and its ethical dilemmas, and human-centred learning concept and its dimensions, to examine the implications of integrating social and cultural (...) contexts. By examining the evolution of e-learning management systems the argument progresses to a discussion of the relationships between pedagogy and ethics. By framing evidence at different scales, the authors critically reflect on the ethical dilemmas embedded in e-learning systems. The discussion concludes with advocating the adoption of an extension of “three P” mode of pedagogy to become the “P3E” model: personalization, participation, productivity, lecturer’s ethics, learner’s ethics, and organizational ethics. (shrink)

Deep learning developers typically rely on deep learning software frameworks (DLSFs)—simply described as pre-packaged libraries of programming components that provide high-level access to deep learning functionality. New DLSFs progressively encapsulate mathematical, statistical and computational complexity. Such higher levels of abstraction subsequently make it easier for deep learning methodology to spread through mimesis (i.e., imitation of models perceived as successful). In this study, we quantify this increase in abstraction and discuss its implications. Analyzing publicly available code from (...) Github, we found that the introduction of DLSFs correlates both with significant increases in the number of deep learning projects and substantial reductions in the number of lines of code used. We subsequently discuss and argue the importance of abstraction in deep learning with respect to ephemeralization, technological advancement, democratization, adopting timely levels of abstraction, the emergence of mimetic deadlocks, issues related to the use of black box methods including privacy and fairness, and the concentration of technological power. Finally, we also discuss abstraction as a symptom of an ongoing technological metatransition. (shrink)

The presence of general intelligence poses a major evolutionary puzzle, which has led to increased interest in its presence in nonhuman animals. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate this question and to explore the implications for current theories about the evolution of cognition. We first review domain-general and domain-specific accounts of human cognition in order to situate attempts to identify general intelligence in nonhuman animals. Recent studies are consistent with the presence of general intelligence in mammals (...) (rodents and primates). However, the interpretation of a psychometricgfactor as general intelligence needs to be validated, in particular in primates, and we propose a range of such tests. We then evaluate the implications of general intelligence in nonhuman animals for current theories about its evolution and find support for the cultural intelligence approach, which stresses the critical importance of social inputs during the ontogenetic construction of survival-relevant skills. The presence of general intelligence in nonhumans implies that modular abilities can arise in two ways, primarily through automatic development with fixed content and secondarily through learning and automatization with more variable content. The currently best-supported model, for humans and nonhuman vertebrates alike, thus construes the mind as a mix of skills based on primary and secondary modules. The relative importance of these two components is expected to vary widely among species, and we formulate tests to quantify their strength. (shrink)

The new emphasis that Rachlin gives to social learning is welcome, because its role in the emergence of altruism and communication is often underestimated. However, Rachlin's account is underspecified and therefore not satisfactory. I argue that recent computational models of the evolution of language show an alternative approach and present an appealing perspective on the evolution and acquisition of a complex, altruistic behavior like syntactic language.

Cet article propose d’étudier l’apprentissage transformateur en tant que théorie dominante dans le champ de l’éducation des adultes. Il vise à étudier, d’une façon critique, cette théorie, devenue de plus en plus indépendante de son auteur. Le but de l’article est d’examiner les évolutions de ce construit et son expansion dans le champ de la formation des adultes. L’hypothèse est que la diffusion massive du construit d’apprentissage transformateur est due à la possibilité de le convoquer dans différents contextes et situations. (...) Les questions de recherche traitées dans cet article sont les suivantes : Comment l’apprentissage transformateur s’est-il développé en tant que théorie de l’éducation des adultes? Quelles sont ses caractéristiques? Comment Mezirow a-t-il exploré puis défini la théorie de l’apprentissage transformateur? Quelle est la théorie de référence de Mezirow? L’article se structure en traitant de la naissance de la théorie et se focalise ensuite sur la consolidation de ses concepts de base. L’évolution des différentes approches sera discutée. Enfin, l’affirmation internationale de l’apprentissage transformateur est présentée notamment dans ses liens avec le réseau européen. (shrink)

Lewis signaling games illustrate how language might evolve from random behavior. The probability of evolving an optimal signaling language is, in part, a function of what learning strategy the agents use. Here we investigate three learning strategies, each of which allows agents to forget old experience. In each case, we find that forgetting increases the probability of evolving an optimal language. It does this by making it less likely that past partial success will continue to reinforce suboptimal practice. (...) The learning strategies considered here show how forgetting past experience can promote learning in the context of games with suboptimal equilibria. (shrink)

Reactions to the target article included requests for extensions and elaborations of the schema we proposed and discussions of apparent shortcomings of our approach. In general, we welcome suggestions for extension of the schema to additional kinds of social behavior and to forms of learning other than Pavlovian conditioning. Many of the requested elaborations of the schema are consistent with our approach, but some may limit its generality. Many of the apparent shortcomings that commentators discussed do not seem problematic. (...) Our schema encourages a broad view of the behavioral consequences of Pavlovian conditioning – including learned modifications of responding to the unconditioned stimulus. Costs and benefits addressed by our schema are the long-range reproductive consequences of learning – not the immediate reinforcing consequences of particular conditioned responses. Our approach allows the evolution of learning to yield maladaptive behavior and can be extended to characterize dynamic social interactions. We clarify that ours is not a homeostatic model involving ideal set points, and we clarify and defend our application of Pavlovian concepts to the analysis of social play. (shrink)

Are non-human animals conscious? When do babies begin to feel pain? What function is served by consciousness? What evidence could resolve these issues? In The Evolution of Consciousness, psychologist Euan Macphail tackles these questions and more by exploring such topics as: animal cognition; unconscious learning and perception in humans; infantile amnesia; theory of mind in primates; and the nature of pleasure and pain. Experimental results are placed in theoretical context by tracing the development of concepts of consciousness in (...) animals and humans. Written in an accessible style, this book will be of interest to students and professionals in psychology, philosophy, and linguistics, as well as all those interested in the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

The essays in this book discuss the originally proposed Baldwin effect, how it was modified over time, and its possible contribution to contemporary empirical...

Veit suggests that the challenge of coordinating movement in multicellular organisms led to the evolution of a prioritizing value system, which rendered organisms complex enough to be sentient and drove the Cambrian explosion, while the absence of this evaluation system led to the demise of Ediacaran animals. In this commentary we criticize Veit’s terminology and evolutionary proposals, arguing that his terminology and evolutionary scenarios are problematic, and put forward alternative proposals. We suggest that sentience is a system property, and (...) that the evolution of sentience was the outcome of the evolution of open-ended associative learning, which included the coevolution of sensory, motor, memory, and value subsystems. We suggest that these coevolutionary system dynamics were a factor in the Cambrian explosion and contributed to the extinction of the Ediacaran biota. (shrink)

Some of the features of animal and human categorical perception (CP) for color, pitch and speech are exhibited by neural net simulations of CP with one-dimensional inputs: When a backprop net is trained to discriminate and then categorize a set of stimuli, the second task is accomplished by "warping" the similarity space (compressing within-category distances and expanding between-category distances). This natural side-effect also occurs in humans and animals. Such CP categories, consisting of named, bounded regions of similarity space, may be (...) the ground level out of which higher-order categories are constructed; nets are one possible candidate for the mechanism that learns the sensorimotor invariants that connect arbitrary names (elementary symbols?) to the nonarbitrary shapes of objects. This paper examines how and why such compression/expansion effects occur in neural nets. (shrink)

Species evolve, very slowly, through selection of genes which give rise to phenotypes well adapted to their environments. The cultures, including the languages, of human communities evolve, much faster, maintaining at least a minimum level of adaptedness to the external, non- cultural environment. In the phylogenetic evolution of species, the transmission of information across generations is via copying of molecules, and innovation is by mutation and sexual recombination. In cultural evolution, the transmission of information across generations is by (...) learning, and innovation is by sporadic invention or borrowing from other cultures. This much is the foundational bedrock of evolutionary theory. But things get more complicated; there can be gene-culture co-evolution. Prior to the rise of culture, the physical environment is the only force shaping biological evolution from outside the organism, and cultures themselves are clearly constrained by the evolved biological characteristics of their members. But cultures become part of the external environment, and influence the course of biological evolution. For example, altruistic cultures with developed medical knowledge reduce the cost to the individual of carrying genes disposing to certain pathologies (such as diabetes); and such genes become more widespread in the populations maintaining such cultures. Assortative mating can affect biological evolution, and particular cultures may influence the factors which are sorted for in mating. (For a careful discussion of the effects of cultural evolution on natural selection, see Cavalli-Sforza and Bodmer, 1971:774- 804). This paper examines mechanisms involved in the co-evolution of a biological trait, the critical period for language acquisition, and a property of human cultures, the size of their languages. A gene/culture interaction will be shown that can be described as a kind of symbiosis, but perhaps more aptly as an `arms race'. In this introduction, we will sketch the basic mechanics of the interaction in very broad terms; the rest of the paper will explain and justify the details. The implications of our model for second language acquisition are given toward the end of the paper. (shrink)

To coordinate action, information must be transmitted, processed, and utilized to make decisions. Transmission of information requires the existence of a signaling system in which the signals that are exchanged are coordinated with the appropriate content. Signaling systems in nature range from quorum signaling in bacteria [Schauder and Bassler, Kaiser ], through the dance of the bees [Dyer and Seeley ], birdcalls [Hailman, Ficken, and Ficken, Gyger, Marler and Pickert, Evans, Evans, and Marler, Charrier and Sturdy ], and alarm calls (...) in many species [Seyfarth and Cheney, Green and Maegner,Manser, Seyfarth and Cheney ], up to human language. Information processing includes filtering – that is discarding irrelevant information and passing along what is important – and integration of multiple pieces of information. Integration includes logical inference and voting. Finally, the information must be used to make decisions with consequences for payoffs that drive evolution or learning. (shrink)

The evolution of boundedly rational rules for playing normal form games is studied within stationary environments of stochastically changing games. Rules are viewed as algorithms prescribing strategies for the different normal form games that arise. It is shown that many of the “folk results” of evolutionary game theory, typically obtained with a fixed game and fixed strategies, carry over to the present environments. The results are also related to some recent experiments on rules and games.

Signaling games with reinforcement learning have been used to model the evolution of term languages (Lewis 1969, Convention. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Skyrms 2006, “Signals” Presidential Address. Philosophy of Science Association for PSA). In this article, syntactic games, extensions of David Lewis’s original sender–receiver game, are used to illustrate how a language that exploits available syntactic structure might evolve to code for states of the world. The evolution of a language occurs in the context of available (...) vocabulary and syntax—the role played by each component is compared in the context of simple reinforcement learning. (shrink)

What makes fast, cumulative cultural evolution work? Where did it come from? Why is it the sole preserve of humans? We set out a self-assembly hypothesis: cultural evolution evolved culturally. We present an evolutionary account that shows this hypothesis to be coherent, plausible, and worthy of further investigation. It has the following steps: (0) in common with other animals, early hominins had significant capacity for social learning; (1) knowledge and skills learned by offspring from their parents began (...) to spread because bearers had more offspring, a process we call CS1 (or Cultural Selection 1); (2) CS1 shaped attentional learning biases; (3) these attentional biases were augmented by explicit learning biases (judgements about what should be copied from whom). Explicit learning biases enabled (4) the high-fidelity, exclusive copying required for fast cultural accumulation of knowledge and skills by a process we call CS2 (or Cultural Selection 2), and (5) the emergence of cognitive processes such as imitation, mindreading and metacognition – ‘cognitive gadgets’ specialised for cultural learning. This self-assembly hypothesis is consistent with archaeological evidence that the stone tools used by early hominins were not dependent on fast, cumulative cultural evolution, and suggests new priorities for research on ‘animal culture’. (shrink)

A persisting question in the philosophy of animal minds is which nonhuman animals share our capacity for episodic memory. Many authors address this question by primarily defining EM, trying to capture its seemingly unconstrained flexibility and independence from environmental and bodily constraints. EM is therefore often opposed to clearly context-bound capacities like tracking environmental regularities and forming associations. The problem is that conceptualizing EM in humans first, and then reconstructing how humans evolved this capacity, provides little constraints for understanding the (...) evolution of memory abilities in other species: it defines “genuine” EM as independent from animals’ evolved sensorimotor setup and learning abilities. In this paper, I define memory in terms of perceptual learning: remembering means “knowing what to do in later situations because of past experience in similar earlier situations”. After that, I explain how episodic memory can likewise be explained in terms of perceptual learning. For this, we should consider that the information in animals’ ecological niches is much richer than has hitherto been presumed. Accordingly, instead of asking “given that environmental stimuli provide insufficient information about the cache, what kind of representation does the jay need?” we ask “given that the animal performs in this way, what kind of information is available in the environment?” My aim is not to give a complete alternative explanation of EM; rather, it is to provide conceptual and methodological tools for more zoocentric comparative EM-research. (shrink)

We discuss the evolutionary transition from animals with limited experiencing to animals with unlimited experiencing and basic consciousness. This transition was, we suggest, intimately linked with the evolution of associative learning and with flexible reward systems based on, and modifiable by, learning. During associative learning, new pathways relating stimuli and effects are formed within a highly integrated and continuously active nervous system. We argue that the memory traces left by such new stimulus-effect relations form dynamic, flexible, (...) and varied global sensory states, which we call categorizing sensory states . These CSSs acquired a function: they came to act as internal “evaluators” and led to positive and negative reinforcement of new behavior. They are therefore the simplest, distinct, first-person motivational states that an animal can have. They constitute what we call basic consciousness, and are the hallmark of animals that can experience. Since associative learning has been found in many invertebrate taxa that first appeared during the Cambrian era, we propose that the processes underlying basic consciousness are phylogenetically ancient, and that their emergence may have fueled the Cambrian explosion. (shrink)

Decision making is a fundamental aspect of cognition that lies at the heart of theories about behaviour, learning, and mental processing. It spans multiple levels of complexity, from high-level planning to low-level movement control and perceptual recognition. Tracking the evolutionary trajectory of this elementary cognitive process can illuminate the foundations of behaviour and brain functions. This paper highlights a previously understudied defining feature of decision mechanisms: the ways in which mutual exclusion between alternatives is achieved. We argue that any (...) decision is defined by a set of mutually exclusive alternatives, and this exclusivity – rather than the specific identity of the alternatives – requires specialized mechanisms. We demonstrate how the physical body of simple decision-making entities can serve as such a mechanism, and that the detachment of these mechanisms from bodily and environmental constraints enabled complex decision-making. Furthermore, while many theories emphasize how the evolution of neural circuits enhanced integration and control through associative structures, we propose that the evolution of mutual exclusion requires non-associative constructions. We conclude that understanding the evolution of these mechanisms is crucial for studying cognitive evolution, and we propose a potential evolutionary trajectory. (shrink)

A shared narrative in the literature on the evolution of cooperation maintains that social _learning_ evolves early to allow for the transmission of cumulative culture. Social _norms_, whilst present at the outset, only rise to prominence later on, mainly to stabilise cooperation against the threat of defection. In contrast, I argue that once we consider insights from social epistemology, an expansion of this narrative presents itself: An interesting kind of social norm — an epistemic coordination norm — was operative (...) in early and important instances of specialised social learning. I show how there’s a need for such norms in two key social learning strategies and explain how this need is constituted. In assessor-teaching (e.g. Castro et al., 2019b, 2021), epistemic coordination norms allow agents to coordinate around the _content_ of social learning, i.e., what is to be known and how this is to be done. These norms also allow agents to coordinate around the form of cultural learning in what’s sometimes called strategic social learning (Laland, 2004; Hoppitt & Laland, 2013; Heyes, 2018, Chap. 5) and elsewhere. Broadly speaking, this concerns how cultural learning is organised within the social group. The upshot is that the evolution of social learning and social norms are intertwined in important and underappreciated ways from early on. The above matters as it informs our views about the evolution of social norms more generally. Truly _social_ norms emerged to coordinate a plurality of complex behaviours and interactions, amongst them specialised social learning. I substantiate this view by contrasting it with Jonathan Birch’s views on the evolution of norms. What results is a general but cohesive narrative on the early evolution of social norms. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that there is much to learn about “wild justice” and the evolutionary origins of morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living mammals. Because of its relatively wide distribution among the mammals, ethological investigation of play, informed by interdisciplinary cooperation, can provide a comparative perspective on the evolution of ethical behavior that is broader than is provided by the usual focus on primate sociality. Careful analysis of social play reveals rules (...) of engagement that guide animals in their social encounters. Because of its significance in development, play may provide a foundation of fairness for other forms of cooperation that are advantageous to group living. Questions about the evolutionary roots of cooperation, fairness, trust, forgiveness, and morality are best answered by attention to the details of what animals do when they engage in social play – how they negotiate agreements to cooperate, to forgive, to behave fairly, and to develop trust. We consider questions such as why play fairly? Why did play evolve as it has? Does “being fair” mean being more fit? Do individual variations in play influence an individual’s reproductive fitness? Can we use information about the foundations of moral behavior in animals to help us understand ourselves? We conclude that there is likely to be strong selection for cooperative fair play because there are mutual benefits when individuals adopt this strategy and group stability may also be fostered. Numerous mechanisms have evolved to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of social play, to keep others engaged, so that agreeing to play fairly and the resulting benefits of doing so can be readily achieved. (shrink)

The Transformation of Learning gives an overview of some significant advances of the cultural-historical activity theory, also known as CHAT in the educational domain. Developments are described with respect to both the theoretical framework and research. The book's main focus is on the evolution of the learning concept and school practices under the influence of cultural-historical activity theory. Activity theory has contributed to this transformation of views on learning, both conceptually and practically. It has provided us (...) with a useful approach to the understanding of learning in cultural contexts. (shrink)

This Book Focuses On The Evolution Of Philosophy In India With Reference To Socio-Political And Economic Conditions, Through Which One Can Learn That Life And Thought Are Invariably Interconnected With Polity And Persons, Economy And Environment. This Book Is Unique In The Sense That It Contains A Review In The Conclusion; And The Philosophical Heritage Has Been Evaluated In Its Introduction.

theories. What was Freud thinking, when, and why and what were the major influences which shaped his ideas? We follow the inner movement of his theory construction, its meaning and coherence, as well as his conceptual logic and personal directions concerning his evolving views of the reciprocal interactions between mind and body, the motivational force of instinctual drives, and the dominant role of sexuality rooted in evolutionary biology in human development, behaviour, and the creation of neurotic disturbances. We follow Freud's (...) construction and sequential reconstructions of his theoretical models concerning the nature, dynamics, and principles of unconscious mental functioning, including his changing concepts on the nature and purpose of dreams. We trace his changing views on the role of deferred action of early childhood experiences and the determining role of unconscious fantasy, psychic reality, in the formation of adult character structure and neuroses. Through such historical analysis this book provides grounding for a meaningful understanding of Freud's familiar concepts: id, ego, superego, and the Oedipus complex. We explore what these concepts meant to Freud, why he conceived them, and what functions they served in his theory of mind. This is the perfect book for students and trainees wanting to learn more about the development of Freud's ideas, as well as for established psychoanalysts and psychotherapists interested in expanding their knowledge of Freud's theories. (shrink)

The evolution of color categorization systems is investigated by simulating categorization games played by a population of artificial agents. The constraints placed on individual agent’s perception and cognition are minimal and involve limited color discriminability and learning through reinforcement. The main dynamic mechanism for population evolution is pragmatic in nature: There is a pragmatic need for communication between agents, and if the results of such communications have positive consequences in their shared world then the agents involved are (...) positively rewarded, whereas if the results have negative consequences, then involved agents are punished. A mechanism for changing the composition of the population due to agents’ birth and death is also investigated. This birth-death mechanism is found to effectively move an established population color naming system toward a theoretically more optimal one. The simulation results of this article provide insights regarding mechanisms that may constrain universal tendencies in human color categorization systems observed in the linguistic and anthropological literatures. (shrink)

There is both theoretical and experimental reason to suppose that no-one could ever have learned to speak without an environment of language-users. How then did the first language-users learn? Animal communication systems provide no help, since human languages aren't constituted as a natural system of signs, and are essentially recursive and syntactic. Such languages aren't demanded by evolution, since most creatures, even intelligent creatures, manage very well without them. I propose that representations, and even public representations like sculptures, precede (...) full languages, which were devised by the first human children as secret tongues to create fantasy realms inaccessible to their proto-human parents. Language, in brief, is not required for truth-telling or for the convenience of hunters. It is a peculiar modification of public representation, which permits us to construct new public worlds. (shrink)

How did our capacities mentally to represent the world evolve? Here is one kind of answer: To represent the world is to have a special kind of wiring inside your head, and special physical connections between that wiring and the world. How do organisms come to have that kind of wiring? Both evolution and individual learning are involved, but there has at least to be an evolutionary explanation of how some organisms acquired the capacity to wire themselves up (...) as representers. This evolutionary story probably will be one about the usefulness of that special kind of inner wiring for dealing with environmental problems; we owe this special wiring to a long history of mutation and natural selection. Asking about the evolution of mental representation is no different form asking about the evolution of the immune system or warm-bloodedness. We might hear this first answer from people like Fred Dretske, Ruth Millikan, David Papineau, and Kim Sterelny. (shrink)