https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics

related to ideas I've had with respect to Werner R. Loewenstein?

• comment
  • this is definitely seeing evolution through a Buddhist lens!
  • mara - maintain status quo
  • bodhisattva - infinite transformation

• for: cultural evolution, cultural evolution - Bruce Hood, cumulative cultural evolution, CCE, gene-culture coevolution

• paraphrase

  • Our evolving technology allowed us to expand into new territories and manipulate the environment in ways that gave us an edge.
  • Places like this remind me about how harsh nature can be.
  • We're so used to living in air conditioning, and having the comfort of the modern world, but when you go out into nature and experience it first hand, you're reminded very powerfully about how weak we are as an animal.
  • And this is because we are fundamentally a cultural species.
  • Culture is our life support system.
  • Our cumulative culture allows us to
    • cushion ourselves against the harsh realities of the environment and to
    • reshape the environment.

• for: cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, CCE, bioengineering, novel life form, culturally evolved life, bioethics, progress trap, progress trap - bioengineering, progress trap - genetic engineering
• comment
  • cultural evolution, which itself emerges from biological evolution is acting upon itself to create new life forms that have no evolutionary backstory
  • this is tantamount to playing God
  • progress traps often emerge out of the large speed mismatch between cultural and biological/genetic evolution.
  • Nowhere is this more profound than in bioengineering of new forms of life with no evolutionary history
  • This presents profound ethical challenges

• for: Winnicott, Freud, comparison, comparison - Winnicott - Freud, transitional space, Bardo, evolution
• paraphrase

• comparison: Winnicott, Freud

  • Winnicott had a strikingly different notion of the agent of psychological change than Freud.

    • Winnicott
      • His psychotherapeutic model was developmental, one that sees.
        • the therapeutic relationship and
        • the original parent-child relationship(s)
      • as analogous.
      • Thus, just as he saw the development of the child as being fundamentally tied
        • to the immediate, visceral relationship with the mother in the experiential unit.

    • psychotherapeutic change was all about the relationship between - client and - therapist.

      • This was later conceptualised as a shift
        • from a ‘one-person’ psychology
        • to a ‘two-person’ psychology.

    • Freud

      • Freud was focused on rational interventions from the outside
      • This gave way in Winnicott to a co-creative journey occurring in the area in between,
    • which was much more about who one was and what one did, than what one thought or said.
      • In his book Playing and Reality (1971),
    • Winnicott called the location of this experience ‘transitional space’,
      • alluding to its dynamic, insubstantial quality,
      • but also to its nature as a place of becoming.
    • It is, he said, a place we both
      • create and that
      • creates us
    • a paradox that we must accept and not try to resolve
    • where unformulated possibility replaces
      • fixed identities, and
      • experience is necessarily co-constructed.

• comment

  • Winnicott's transitional space is like
    • the Tibetan concept of the Bardo
    • the biological concept of evolution

• for: evolution
• question
  • Does life not require both?
  • Regardless, Indra's net of jewels is an appropriate metaphor

The dramatic increase in economic specialization of humanity driven by the Industrial Revolution has many benefits to societies, but it also has detrimental effects when the core knowledge and shared base of the society is lost.

Certainly individuals have a greater reliance on specialists for future outcomes (think about the specialization of areas like climate science which can have destructive outcomes on all of humanity or public health outcomes with respect to vaccines and specialized health care delivery), but they also need to have a common base of knowledge/culture and the ability to think critically for themselves to be able to effect necessary changes, particularly when the pace of those changes is more rapid than humans have generally been evolved to accept them.

Good writing is pointing out the interesting things you see to others. It's pre-literate, and even pre-oral.

• for: progress trap, cumulative cultural evolution, gene-culture co-evolution, speed of cultural evolution, human genome project
• paraphrase
  • the human genome project took 10 years and cost 3 billion dollars
  • with NGS technology, 10 years later, the same job takes 1 day and costs $15,000 dollars

Lego theory of science.

Individual bricks are facts which can be assembled in a variety of ways, each of which is a particular paradigm. Ultimately, the optimal structure is one which dovetails with the neighborhoods of structures around them while each having the best minimized structure of it's own.

With only handfuls of individual facts, it can be difficult to build them up into an interesting or useful structure to start. Doing this may help to discover other facts. As these are added, one may reshape the overall structure of the theory as the puzzle begins to reveal itself and allow the theorist the ability to best structure an overall theory which minimizes itself and allows dovetailing with other external theories. All the theories then eventually form their own pieces which can then be pieced together for the next structural level up.

See also Simon Singh, Thomas Kuhn, topology.

• for: climate change - evolutionary causes, cultural evolution - unsustainability, unsustainability
• definition: Anthroecological theory (AET)
  • This theory proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering

• for: for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power, gene culture coevolution
• key finding
  • paraphrase
    • In AET,
      • multi-level selection acting on the genome and
      • occurring in concert with selective and non-selective mechanisms acting on culture and technology
    • results in a species that is prone to
      • niche construction and
      • ecosystem engineering,
    • and the scale of these processes continues to increase as the population rises.
    • This increasing scale
      • coupled with human propensity for niche construction
    • leads to human unsustainability

• for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power
• paraphrase
  • to Gowdy and Krall, the ultra-social nature of human groups allowed for a shift in the primary level of selection
    • from the individual level
    • to the group level.
  • Thus, “With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt
    • driven by the imperative to produce surplus

• for: AET, Anthroecological theory, anthropocene - causes, ecological crisis - roots, overshoot
• paraphrase
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) hypothesizes that
    • human social and cultural evolution is the ultimate cause of the ecological crises currently damaging earth systems

• for: gene culture coevolution, carrying capacity, unsustainability, overshoot, cultural evolution, progress trap

• Title: The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability

• Author: Brian F. Snyder

• Abstract

• Summary
• Paraphrase
  • Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth.
  • While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied
    • climate change,
    • biodiversity loss,
    • population growth
  • the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored.
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is
    • multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering.
  • Here, we integrate this theory with
    • Lotka’s Maximum Power Principle
  • and propose a model linking
    • energy extraction from the environment with
    • genetic, technological and cultural evolution
  • to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity.
  • Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as
    • the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and
    • the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output.
  • These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection
  • in all species,
  • but in humans, they are also determined by
    • technology and
    • culture.
  • If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in
    • the ability of an individual or social group
  • to increase its carrying capacity,
  • then we hypothesize that - selection or cultural evolution will act - to increase carrying capacity.
  • Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs - faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution,
    • then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.

• for: evolution, evolution - war, descendants - war
• paraphrase
  • Genetic analyses of human Y chromosomes (which are passed directly from fathers to sons) reveal that
    • groups of men who succeeded on the battlefield replaced the losing groups of men in the gene pool.
  • In other words, the coalitions of men who were successful in warfare not only survived
    • but reproduced with local women and passed on their genes.
  • Success on the battlefield was thus highly consequential.
  • Humans today are the descendants of those men who managed to dominate their opponents in war. -comment
  • wow!

• for: stats, quote, stats - homophobia - war, quote - homophobia - war, evolution - homophobia, homophobia - war
• quote
• stats
  • estimates indicate that nearly 20-30% of our male ancestors died in intergroup conflicts
• comment
  • wow!

• for: evolution - homophobia - war
• title
  • Ancient Warriors and Modern Footballers: An Evolutionary Explanation for Homophobia
• source
  • https://areomagazine.com/2023/05/19/ancient-warriors-and-modern-footballers-an-evolutionary-explanation-for-homophobia/

• for cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, progress trap, Freeman Dyson,
• comment
  • Freeman Dyson opines that cultural evolution of humans now determines the genetic fate of all species on the planet
    • and gives a warning of how human cumulative cultural evolution now has the potential to threaten, via genetic sciences to play God over biology itself -reference
  • Musician Yoyo Ma quotes Freeman:
  • https://hyp.is/go?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocdrop.org%2Fvideo%2F2fBmGXqHvk8%2F&group=world

• for: cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution, progress trap, Freeman Dyson, Anthropocene
• comment
  • while Freeman spoke to the direct dangers of genetic engineering,
    • he neglected to point out the broader threat of progress itself, which has already placed our species in the position
      • of playing God with the evolution of many species on the planet already, via the enormous impacts of organized human activity - ie. the Anthropocene

• for: cumulative cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution
• paraphrase
  • The story that they are telling
  • is of a grand transition that occurred about fifty thousand years ago,
  • when the driving force of evolution changed
    • from biology
    • to culture,
  • and the direction changed
    • from diversification
    • to unification of species.
  • The understanding of this story can perhaps help us to deal more wisely with our responsibilities as stewards of our planet.

It's really saying something that in paragraph 2 the "sell" for religion is the health and social benefits and outcomes rather than the love or support of god(s)!

• for: human impacts, MET, major evolutionary transition, progress trap, human responsibility to life, CCE, cumulative cultural evolution, playing God
• comment
  • Very true, in fact our species is in the unprecedented position that
  • human activity, and specifically our cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) now determines the biological / genetic evolutionary future not only of our own species, but of all life on earth.
  • In other words, of evolution itself! -This is an awkward position as we have nowhere near the wisdom to play God and determine the future direction of evolution!
• References
  • Cumulative Cultural Evolution
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=cumulative%2Bcultural%2Bevolution

• for: climate communication, mass mobilization, collective action, climate messaging, beauty, evolution
• claim
  • the natural world is sexy, beautiful, and it would be a waste to have it all destroyed
  • the entire biosphere is made out of female desire for no reason to it
    • not with an objective of reproducing
      • but just with an objective of wow that's really sexy I like it
    • and that's a very very good reason isn't it to to save the planet
  • these beautiful qualities that have no Rhyme or Reason to them but are actually to do with creativity and Imagination
    • are not some kind of special thing that human beings impose from some kind of abstract Heaven onto Earth
    • they are actually heaven on Earth
    • they're part of Heaven and they are coming out of our embodied biological being right and this is an amazing thing
      • pity and
      • compassion and
      • generosity
    • and all these things are are traits in primates
      • sharing things and
      • being kind right
    • and so I reckon you know the kind of religious feeling that we need to inculcate
    • it is actually about this feeling inside
      • this kind of surging feeling of
        • inspiration and
        • love and
        • passion
      • and everything is exactly coming to us from our Evolution and
      • it's coming for no reason at all
      • it's just coming from random genetic mutation and the fact that having these feelings doesn't kill you
    • so this is a very good reason I think to save Earth
    • the essence of us is
      • our future and
      • our physical biological being
    • and it's always just a little bit off to the side like tomorrow is just a little bit off to the side of today
      • but I'm going to get there at some point right and
      • I think that's the attitude

This site is not about evolution per se, but is an apologist platform for creationism. Possibly interesting as a study in creative memetics for culture influence campaigns.

• The Buddha taught that everything is
  • connected and
  • constantly changing.
• These fundamental observations of the world are shared by
  • ecology and
  • evolution.
• We are living in a time of unprecedented rates of extinction.
• Science provides us with the information that we need to address this extinction crisis.
• However, the problems underlying extinction generally do not result from a lack of scientific understanding,
  • but they rather result from an unwillingness to take the needed action.

• I present mindfulness and meditative aspects of Zen practice that provide the deeper “knowing,” or awareness that we need to inspire action on these problems.

• comment

  • emptiness is interdependency and change
  • in Deep Humanity praxis, it is equivalent to
    • human INTERbeing and
    • human INTERbeCOMing

• My overall objective in this paper is to
  • unite the sciences of ecology and evolution
  • with the spiritual practice of Zen
    • in order to inspire actions to address the extinction crisis that we are currently facing.
  • I do this by addressing the following three points:
    • Zen and science are both based upon empirical observations of the world.
    • Zen and science both tell us that there is no separation between humans and the world around us.
  • Ecology and evolution provide the scientific background needed to address the biodiversity crisis;
    • Zen provides the deeper knowing that will motivate our action to address this problem

• Title
  • Zen and deep evolution: The optical delusion of separation
• Author
  • Fred W. Allendorf
• Date
  • 2018

• Source

  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6099813/

• Abstract

  • The Buddha taught that everything is connected and constantly changing.
• These fundamental observations of the world are shared by ecology and evolution.
  • We are living in a time of unprecedented rates of extinction.
• Science provides us with the information that we need to address this extinction crisis.
  • However, the problems underlying extinction generally do not result from a lack of scientific understanding, -but they rather result from an unwillingness to take the needed action.
  • I present mindfulness and meditative aspects of Zen practice
    • that provide the deeper “knowing,” or awareness that we need to inspire action on these problems.

Creation, (Samuel Goldwyn Films, 2009) https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/creation-2?vp=lapl

Torn between faith and science, and suffering hallucinations, English naturalist Charles Darwin struggles to complete 'On the Origin of Species' and maintain his relationship with his wife.

Director Jon Amiel Featuring: Jennifer Connelly, Benedict Cumberbatch, Toby Jones, Paul Bettany, Ian Kelly

• comment
  • example of
    • Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE)

• quote

  • "it is as if man had been suddenly appointed managing director of the biggest business of all the business of evolution appointed without being asked if he wanted it and without proper warning and preparation what is more he can't refuse the job whether he wants to or not whether he is conscious of what he is doing or not he is in point of fact determining the future direction of evolution on this earth that is his inescapable Destiny and the sooner he realizes it and starts believing in it the better for all concerns"
  • Julian Huxley

• Comment

  • Huxley was prescient in making this observation,
    • as our species
      • cumulative cultural evolution, and
      • the impact of our niche construction
      • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&tag=cumulative+cultural+evolution
    • does now indeed more or less determine the entire course of evolution of life on earth

Nothing progresses without randomness.

Think about this for a bit. True/untrue? Provable? Counterexamples?

// - To find a God that can kill Moloch - requires an understanding of the nature of progress as well - Relationship to progress traps - Exponential technologies - are technologies, and all suffer the same fundamental flaw - Progress is an expression of our cumulative cultural evolution - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=cumulative+cultural+evolution - which grows exponentially faster than genetic evolution - The problem of which is that - the shadow side of progress, the progress trap - - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=progress%2Btrap - is growing even faster, due to our misunderstanding of it, - allowing it to fester like an untreated wound - turning a minor condition, into a life-threatening disease - Human progress has always been a bungling two step forwards, one step backwards dance - the imperfections of progress are inherent - and baked into the innovation process itself - For we develop technologies based on what we know, or what is visible - but what we know is like the tip of the latent knowledge iceberg - and is always accompanied by a much larger hidden component of what we don't know - In other words, - finite and visible knowledge - is always accompanied by infinite and invisible ignorance - Design is based on intent, - a one dimensional, inherently myopic imagination - of a multi-dimensional reality - A problem is a one dimensional focus - on a small sliver of reality - A solution to the problem is necessarily - myopic and - one dimensional as well - Both problems and their (designed) solutions - are extreme simplifications of a complex system - Language itself is a way - to direct and focus our attention - to this aspect of reality - then that aspect - Thinking is reduced to parts, and never experiences the whole, undivided gestalt of reality - Out of this process - Progress traps are born //

Definition - Cumulative Cultural Evolution - The core criteria follow the definition of CCE provided in Tomasello's quotation above - A population exhibits CCE iff - (i) a change in behaviour (or product of behaviour, such as an artefact), typically due to asocial learning, followed by - (ii) the transfer via social learning of that novel or modified behaviour to other individuals or groups, where - (iii) the learned behaviour causes an improvement in performance, - which is a proxy of genetic and/or cultural fitness, with - (iv) the previous three steps repeated in a manner that generates sequential improvement over time.

• Boyd & Richerson give a nice explanation of CCE
• In contrast [to non-human species' cultural traditions],
  • human cultures do accumulate changes over many generations,
  • resulting in culturally transmitted behaviors that no single human individual could invent on their own.

Title: What is cumulative cultural evolution (CCE)?

Authors: - Alex Mesoudi - Alex Thornton

Abstract - In recent years, cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) has become the focus of major research interest in - biology, - psychology and - anthropology. - There is a range of opinions on CCE - some argue that CCE is unique to humans - and underlies our extraordinary evolutionary success as a species. - Others claim to have found CCE in non-human species. - Yet others remain sceptical that CCE is even important for explaining - human behavioural diversity and - complexity. - These debates are hampered by multiple and often ambiguous definitions of CCE. - Here, we review how researchers define, use and test CCE. - We identify a core set of criteria for CCE - which are both necessary and sufficient, and - may be found in non-human species. - We also identify a set of extended criteria - that are observed in human CCE - but not, to date, in other species. - Different socio-cognitive mechanisms may underlie these different criteria. - We reinterpret - previous theoretical models and - observational and - experimental studies of both - human and - non-human species - in light of these more fine-grained criteria. - Finally, we discuss key issues surrounding information, fitness and cognition. - We recommend that researchers are more explicit about what components of CCE they are testing and claiming to demonstrate.

According to the Niklas Luhmann-Archiv, Luhmann began his first zettelkasten in 1952 likely when he was working as a legal trainee in Lüneburg or as a government councilor in the Ministry of Education in Lower Saxony.

This timeframe would have been just after Johannes Erich Heyde had published the 8th edition of Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens in 1951.

Link to: - https://hypothes.is/a/Jn9elsk5Ee2hsLP5WWBEBw on dates of NL ZK - https://hypothes.is/a/CqGhGvchEey6heekrEJ9WA aktenzeichen - https://hypothes.is/a/4wxHdDqeEe2OKGMHXDKezA Clemens Luhmann link

The evolution of a human being

This is certainly "a way", but history has shown, particularly in the United States, that government regulation is unlikely to get involved at all until it's far too late, if at all. Typically they're only regulating not only after maturity, but only when massive failure may cause issues for the wealthy and then the "regulation" is to bail them out.

Suggesting this here is so pie-in-the sky that it only creates a false hope (hope washing?) for the powerless. Is this sort of hope washing a recurring part of

What are the long term effects of fast breaking changes and gradual changes for evolved entities?

Such a powerful opening statement that captures that changes technology has made within the past few decades. A sign that we are moving further from our past natural selves as a species.

Title: Fox News producer files explosive lawsuits against the network, alleging she was coerced into providing misleading Dominion testimony

// - This is an example of how big media corporations can deceive the public and compromise the truth - It helps create a nation of misinformed people which destabilizes political governance - the workspace sounds toxic - the undertone of this story: the pathological transformation of media brought about by capitalism - it is the need for ratings, which is the indicator for profit in the marketing world, that has corrupted the responsibility to report truthfully - making money becomes the consumerist dream at the expense of all else of intrinsic value within a culture - knowledge is what enables culture to exist, modernity is based on cumulative cultural evolution - this is an example of NON-conscious cumulative cultural evolution or pathological cumulaitve cultural evolution

• Title: Buddhism and Money: The Repression of Emptiness Today
• Author: David Loy

David Loy explains how - the denial of ego-self, also known as anatma - becomes the root of a persistent sense of lack - as self-consciousness continues to try to ground itself, reify itself and make itself real - while all the meanwhile it is a compelling mental construction

A good paper on the role (non-rational) relational ritual can play to help us out of the current polycrisis is given here: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbrill.com%2Fview%2Fjournals%2Fwo%2F25%2F2%2Farticle-p113_1.xml%3Flanguage%3Den&group=world

It has been suggested that - the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI).

there is disagreement about - how to apply the ETI framework to our species - and whether culture is implicated - as either cause or consequence.

Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) i- s - also poorly understood.

argued that - culture steers human evolution,

Others proposed - genes hold culture on a leash.

After review of the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans - emerge a set of common themes. - First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance - and is probably driving human evolution. - The evolutionary impact of culture occurs - mainly through culturally organized groups, - which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. - Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, - increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. -Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by - an evolutionary transition in inheritance - from genes to culture - which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Research on GCC should focus on the possibility of - an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.

• Quote
  • In the very long term, we suggest that humans are evolving from individual genetic organisms to cultural groups which function as superorganisms, similar to ant colonies and beehives,
  • Tim Waring

• key observation
  • human culture may represent a key evolutionary milestone
  • culture may be the next evolutionary transition state
    • pre-single self organisms like mitochondria increased fitness by sharing the environment with other life forms and formed the single cell
    • then multi-cellular organisms set the stage for the next big evolutionary paradigm
    • splitting into plants and animals
    • sexual reproduction
    • transition to land
  • we are possibly undergoing the next major evolutionary transition
  • in which we will still evolve genetically,
  • but genetics may not determine human survival as much as culture does

• key observation
• paraphrase

• why cultural evolution is too fast for genetic evolution

  • Culture is group-oriented, and people in those groups talk to, learn from and imitate one another.
  • These group behaviors allow people to pass on adaptations they learned through culture faster than genes can transmit similar survival benefits.
  • An individual can learn skills and information from a nearly unlimited number of people in a small amount of time
    • and, in turn, spread that information to many others.
  • And the more people available to learn from, the better.
  • Large groups solve problems faster than smaller groups,
  • and intergroup competition stimulates adaptations that might help those groups survive.

  • As ideas spread, cultures develop new traits.

  • In contrast, a person only inherits genetic information from two parents

    • and racks up relatively few random mutations in their eggs or sperm, which takes about 20 years to be passed on to their small handful of children.
  • That's just a much slower pace of change.

!- key finding - human culture may be driving evolution faster than genetic mutation can work - the major delay, measured in many orders of magnitude - does not allow genetic evolution to adapt quickly enough - to harmful environmental changes brought about through cultural evolution

• TItle: Humans might be making genetic evolution obsolete

// In Other Words

• we must undo the myopic cultural evolution that has already taken place with a more collectively conscious form of cultural evolution //

• Title: Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality
• Author: Herbert Gintis

//Abstract - Summary - Human characteristics are the product of gene–culture coevolution, - which is an evolutionary dynamic involving the interaction of genes and culture - over long time periods. - Gene–culture coevolution is a special case of niche construction. - Gene–culture coevolution is responsible for: - human other-regarding preferences, - a taste for fairness, - the capacity to empathize and - salience of morality and character virtues.

• Title: Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus
• Author:
  • Jeremy Kendal
  • Jamshid J. Tehrani
  • John Oding-Smee
• Abstract
  • summary
  • Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution,
• reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection.
  • It works by adding ecological inheritance,
  • comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction,
  • to genetic inheritance in evolution.
  • Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species.
  • Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent
  • because it includes the social transmission and inheritance
  • of cultural knowledge, and material culture.
  • Human genetic inheritance
  • in combination with human cultural inheritance
  • thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution,
  • and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution.
  • Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences.
  • We elaborate on these processes,
  • and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.

• Abstract
• summary
  • The exhibition of increasingly intensive and complex niche construction behaviors through time
  • is a key feature of human evolution,
  • culminating in the advanced capacity for ecosystem engineering exhibited by Homo sapiens.
  • A crucial outcome of such behaviors has been the dramatic reshaping of the global biosphere,
    • a transformation whose early origins are increasingly apparent
    • from cumulative archaeological and paleoecological datasets.
  • Such data suggest that, by the Late Pleistocene,
  • humans had begun to engage in activities
  • that have led to alterations in the distributions of a vast array of species
  • across most, if not all, taxonomic groups.
  • Changes to biodiversity have included
    • extinctions,
    • extirpations, and
    • shifts in species
      • composition,
      • diversity, and
      • community structure.
  • We outline key examples of these changes,
  • highlighting findings from the study of new datasets, like
    • ancient DNA (aDNA),
    • stable isotopes, and
    • microfossils, as well as
    • the application of new statistical and computational methods to datasets that have accumulated significantly in recent decades.
  • We focus on four major phases that witnessed broad anthropogenic alterations to biodiversity:
    • the Late Pleistocene global human expansion,
    • the Neolithic spread of agriculture,
    • the era of island colonization, and
    • the emergence of early urbanized societies and commercial networks.
  • Archaeological evidence documents millennia of anthropogenic transformations
  • that have created novel ecosystems around the world.
  • This record has implications for:
    • ecological and evolutionary research,
    • conservation strategies, and
    • the maintenance of ecosystem services,
  • pointing to a significant need for broader cross-disciplinary engagement between:
    • archaeology
    • the biological sciences and
    • the environmental sciences.

• Title: Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions
• Author:
  • Nicole L. Bolvin
  • Melinda A. Zeder
  • Dorian O. Fuller
  • Michael D. Petraglia

A fascinating combination of office furniture types in 1906!

The Adjustable Table Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan manufactured a combination table for both telephones and index cards. It was designed as an accessory to be stood next to one's desk to accommodate a telephone at the beginning of the telephone era and also served as storage for one's card index.

Given the broad business-based use of the card index at the time and the newness of the telephone, this piece of furniture likely was not designed as an early proto-rolodex, though it certainly could have been (and very well may have likely been) used as such in practice.

I totally want one of these as a side table for my couch/reading chair for both storing index cards and as a temporary writing surface while reading!

This could also be an early precursor to Twitter!

Folks have certainly mentioned other incarnations: - annotations in books (person to self), - postcards (person to person), - the telegraph (person to person and possibly to others by personal communication or newspaper distribution)

but this is the first version of short note user interface for both creation, storage, and distribution by means of electrical transmission (via telephone) with a bigger network (still person to person, but with potential for easy/cheap distribution to more than a single person)

• Comment
  • the power of the mind can indeed be extended,
  • but without the simultaneous extension of the power of the heart,
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Jan%2Bsmuts
  • We will only create destructive technologies with ever greater efficiency
  • that is is why the next major evolutionary transition
  • must involve compassion and the rediscovery of the sacred
  • which this journey of life has blinded us to
  • The next great evolutionary shift must be conscious cultural evolution
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Jan%2Bsmuts
  • that is the direction civilization must collectively move
  • if civilization itself is to have a chance of surviving
  • emotional intelligence needs to balance intellectual intelligence

• Jan Smuts quote
  • the universe is individuating (in and through each of us)
  • as the individual is universalising.”
    • from his book "Holism and Evolution

• Jan Smuts = definition of Holism = progression of wholes

= title = Holism and Evolution

• Timothy Morton's concept of = hyperobject
• can be interpreted as reflections of alienation
• emerging out of rapid cumulative cultural evolution
• that has made our cognitive machinery genetically evolved and adapted to small group living ( within Dunbar's number) over hundreds of thousands of years

• maladaptive to our too-quickly-culturally-evolved modernity

• References

• https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Maladaptive+cognitive+bias

• This paper is relevant to understanding

  • cumulative cultural evolution
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=stopresetgo&max=300&expanded=true&any=cumulative+cultural+evolution&exactTagSearch=true
  • social tipping points
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=stopresetgo&max=300&expanded=true&any=social+tipping+points&exactTagSearch=true

• Learning

• it introduces me to a number of new useful concepts
  • cognitive advantage
  • cultural network analysis
  • more detailed understanding of memetics
  • cultural epidemiology

Seems like fasting may be beneficial:

The researchers found cerebral fructose levels rose significantly in response to a glucose infusion, with minimal changes in fructose levels in the blood. They surmised that the high concentration of fructose in the brain was due to a metabolic pathway called the polyol pathway that converts glucose to fructose.

And from elsewhere, as seems to be common knowledge:

In prolonged fasting, the brain derives a large portion of its oxidative energy from the ketone bodies, beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate, thereby reducing whole body glucose consumption.

See also: 1. Fasting-Mimicking Diet Reduces Signs of Dementia

• = key insight
• evolution is about change
• when a species repeats known patterns, it sustains itself but it can never evolve
• to evolve, the unseen must play a role

• comment
• this is an example of how granular social learning, the evolution of consciousness and entangled and individual and collective learning takes place in a mundane way
  • another person relays an idea to us
  • it resonates with us by connecting to some point
  • in our salience landscape
  • in this case, caused Nora to look up the word "insidious" that appeared in the words of her daughter
  • and caused her to think of the meaning as something that starts out small and apparently harmless,
  • but gathering and combining in an unseen way to become dangerous

.

• = human being's = altricial nature - is an = evolutionary adaptation
• resulting in exceptional = complex social learning
• tradeoff of helplessness at birth
• is complex social learning
• that enables cumulative cultural evolution

• = cumulative cultural evolution
• humans excel at surviving in = novel ecological niches
• because we share information with each other
• = cumulative cultural evolution - prevents us
• from = reinventing the wheel

• = feral children
  • what does the study of = feral children
  • raised without = human culture
  • tell us about how culture shapes our experience of reality?
  • we are an = altricial species - but what happens when our natural parents are removed
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precociality_and_altriciality

!- quotable : Freeman Dyson - the speed of cultural evolution is now faster than the speed of biological evolution - references on the speed of cultural evolution: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=stopresetgo&max=50&any=Cultural+evolution - Freeman Dyson essay on biological and cultural evolution: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fviahtml.hypothes.is%2Fconversation%2Ffreeman_dyson-biological-and-cultural-evolution&group=world

!- Dual task: wrt biological and cultural evolution

!- Progress trap : genetic engineering - careless use of genetic engineering will interfere with biological evolution

!- The story of human evolution : is the story of hybrid biological and cultural evolution - Svante Paabo shows that 50,000 years ago biological evolution was already deeply affected by human cultural evolution - biological evolution favoured genetic isolation of small populations, like cave dwellers during the ice age - when cultural evolution took over between Neanderthal, Denisovan and Early ancestors of modern humans and memes drove inter species socialisation, crossbreeding LED to mixing and sharing of genes as an unintended consequences

!- expansion into outer space : natural consequence of evolution itself to continue genetic drift

!- comment : Dyson Extrapolates that expansion into outer space is a logical next step for evolution

!- explaining human history : combination of cultural and biological evolution

!- connection : genetic drift and cultural evolution - still no compelling evidence

!- quotable : Cultural Evolution

!- H.G. Wells : Outline of history - cultural evolution as the main theme

!- Herbert Wells : Cultural Evolution

!- modern humans : unique species adept at cultural evolution

!- Title : The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution, published in 1983 !- Author : Motoo Kimura

!- reason behind name of theory : independent of natural selection

!- Sewall Wright : genetic drift

!- genetic engineering : risk - cultural evolution via genetic engineering could make the concept of species meaningless - it is a significant b potential progress traps

!- Title : Biological and Cultural Evolution Six Characters in Search of an Author !- Author : Freeman Dyson !- Date : 2019

!- quotable : Einstein on holism

!- Title : A re-evaluation of ‘Holism and Evolution’ by Jan Christian Smuts after 90 years. !- Author : Claudius van Wyk

Despite Darwin being thought of as having discredited Lamarckian inheritance, there are Lamarckian passages in portions of his work.

Could refuting the idea of accumulation without limits (and thus capitalism for capitalism's sake) help give humans more focus on what is useful/valuable?

Perhaps play helps to provide social lubrication, communication, and bonding between animals which may help in creating cooperation which improves survival or reproduction?

Neo-Darwinism: a modern version of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, incorporating the findings of genetics.

Given the regular seasonality of most animal rutting and parturition, how is it that the human animal evolved to have a more year-round mating season?

!- symbiocene :key attribute - understanding the dangers of cultural evolution to the degree that we can mitigate the dangers emergent from progress traps

!- in other words : cultural evolution is transcending traditional genetic evolution

!- Charles Darwin : cultural evolution - Darwin understood that behavior could evolve and be passed on to offsprings

!- example of : cultural evolution leading to genetic evolution - lactose intolerance

!- in other words : cumulative cultural evolution

!- equivalent to : cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) - the cultural activity of our species will determine not only or species fate, but that of all other species in the biosphere through the complex webs of entangled life or collective human behaviour will impact

!- Futures Thinking : summary - our generation has the most wisdom to deal with the problem, even though it is an unprecedented problem - We need diversity of opinions and perspectives. Like in evolution, that diversity will emerge an optimal solution - To consciously culturally evolve, we need to put all ideas on the table and discuss openly - An open, interpersonal, people-centered knowledge ecosystem such as Indyweb is suitable for such a process

!- Social Superorganism : Biological Survival metaphor - the current social superorganism is fighting to survive as it's life is threatened by the transformation - the metamorphosis will transform it to group 4, if successful

https://medium.com/@ben_fry/tracing-the-origin-65011dc20877

Could be interesting to apply this sort of process to a variety of texts over time. A draft of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein comes to mind.

How to view this through the lens of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? particularly as this was the evolution of an idea by the same author over time...

Darwin's On the Origin of Species only contains one diagram, a branching tree diagram which shows divergence of species.

Commonplacing is a personal practice.

A note taking practice is almost always an evolving process with a variety of different pressures and variables in how it takes form.

List out these variables and pressures.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/yg2g8l/a_thought_experiment_what_if_luhmann_had_been_a/

reply (unsent)<br /> I appreciate where you're coming from, and it's an excellent thought experiment. However, knowing that there was a clear older prior zettelkasten tradition for several hundred years prior to Luhmann which also included a number of mathematician practitioners including not only Leibnitz but also Newton, who incidentally invented his version of calculus in his waste book (also a part of that tradition). (See also: https://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/texts/notebooks?sort=date&order=desc).

This is particularly interesting in light of the research of Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell who within about 50 years dramatically changed the viewpoint of history.

Orality has something to say about this now too...

Gary Thomas posits that it's our cleverness which birthed education. Isn't it more likely our extreme ability to mimic others which is more likely from a cognitive and evolutionary perspective?

Were early peoples really "teaching" each other how to make primitive hand axes? Or did we first start out by closely mimicking our neighbors?

Religion co-evolves with the people, places, and times in which it exists. Much like human genes, it works at the level of the individual, the local group, the larger groups and communities (of both the religion itself as well as the polities around it), and when applicable at the scale of all people on the planet.

The Selfish Religion: How far might we take this religion/gene analogy with respect to Richard Dawkins' thesis (1976). Does religion act more like a gene that is part of the particular person or is it more like a virus which inserts itself? The latter may be closer as one can pick and choose a religion rather than it being a core part of their genetic identity.

(highlight: anchor only)

In his section on "Arrangement of File", C. Wright Mills describes some of the evolution of his "file". Knowing that the form and function of one's notes may change over time (Luhmann's certainly changed over time too, a fact which is underlined by his having created a separate ZK II) one should take some comfort and solace that theirs certainly will as well.

The system designer might also consider the variety of shapes and forms to potentially create a better long term design of their (or others') system(s) for their ultimate needs and use cases. How can one avoid constant change, constant rearrangement, which takes work? How can one minimize the amount of work that goes into creating their system?

The individual knowledge worker or researcher should have some idea about the various user interfaces and potential arrangements that are available to them before choosing a tool or system for maintaining their work. What are the affordances they might be looking for? What will minimize their overall work, particularly on a lifetime project?

!- title : The Evolution of Human Consciousness and Linguistic Behavior !- author : Karen A. Haworth, Terry J. Prewitt

https://thevoroscope.com/2022/06/20/sum-total-human-knowledge-3/

https://thevoroscope.com/2022/06/13/sum-total-human-knowledge-2/

!- for : language evolution - how many symbols do you need for a language? - no more than 2, like a computer with "0" and "1"

!- for : language evolution homo erectus vocal cords

Language is the greatest technology ever invented

In a society consumed with information overload, it is easier for our brains to allow our well evolved cognitive biases to decide not only what to pay attention to, but what to believe.

!- Question : Genetic Evolution

Does this mean that our predominantly cultural evolution threatens to freeze our genetic evolution? This is possible, since genetic evolution takes place on time scales that are orders of magnitudes larger than cultural evolution Unless theoretically proposed, it may have escaped detection for a long time

!- impact : human cultural evolution - is of global evolutionary significance

!- for : Cultural Evolution - the findings of this paper point to culture is displacing genetic adaptive potential as the main driver of evolution. This is a very profound finding!

!- for : Deep Humanity - intriguing result with important implications on cultural evolution

https://twitter.com/inkasrain/status/1566410516721016833

Does anyone know what exactly this is? A friend gave it to me years ago when they visited Jerusalem. I don't read Hebrew. Is it something harmless or should it be shamshed(jew magic)? (attached photo of a mezuzah)

The idea of "magic" here within a modern religious context is interesting in that it shows the divergence of religion and magic as concepts with respect to cultural practices.

The phrasing also has a sense of othering the unknown culture with a sense of fear in the idea that the object should be smashed. There's also a lack of basic science knowledge and tinge of superstition implied by the fact that they think that smashing will somehow dissipate the unknown magic.

So many different cultural indicators of various things going on here...

Ben Thompson by highlighting an argument made by Pat Kerr, that free speech (although lacking a widely accepted definition) is about the tolerance we show others in expressing their opinions, equates it to culture.

https://medium.com/flourish-inc/wait-what-the-did-i-just-read-4b00ff02d1b7

She's basically describing a form of the original zettelkasten (a slip or index card-based commonplace book), but where did she get this from? If it was the blogosphere, which is highly likely these days, then she's either misread or heavily simplified the practice (Luhmann's practice) back down to it's original form.

She seems to take for granted how to link physical cards.