Recent hcs_rw items

The Chinese Room’s Secret

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Starting from a reflection by Jean Pouillon, it is shown - both deductively and on the basis of experimental data - that consciousness is deprived of any decisional power. Consciousness' role is reduced to transmitting to the body instructions based on the emotional response to percepts. Language allows human beings to generate a self-justifying narrative of their deeds. Such an account does not reflect, however, the actual psychological mechanism at work. Consciousness' actual effectiveness resides in influencing on the one hand the affect of the speaker (as speech or as “inner speech”), and on the other hand the affect of any listener. The pair “body” and “soul” gets thus validated, but their traditionally assigned responsibilities need reassigning between one body that decides and acts and one soul whose feedback operates at the affective level only.

Quantitative Differences Between the Working Memory of Chimpanzees and Humans Give Rise to Qualitative Differences: Subitizing and Cranial Development

Mon, 12 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A recent article argues that pure working memory in humans and chimpanzees have the same size. However, the data offered to support this claim show the opposite, namely that the size of pure working memory in chimpanzees is smaller than that of humans. In addition, extensive data show that the effective size of working memory in chimpanzees is much smaller than in humans. Altogether, there are quantitative differences in the size of working memory (pure or effective) between chimpanzees and humans leading to significant qualitative differences between them.

Les bases culturelles de la parenté : un changement de paradigme (translated by Corinne Hewlitt)

Sun, 7 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

D’un point de vue conceptuel, les systèmes de parenté reposent sur des modes de représentation culturelle que nous appelons terminologies de parenté et à partir desquelles les limites, la forme et la structure des principes d’organisation sociale sont culturellement élaborés. Contrairement à ce que les anthropologues tiennent depuis longtemps pour acquis, une terminologie n’est pas forcément inhérente aux relations généalogiques, ces dernières découlant de la logique structurelle de la terminologie de parenté. La structure de la terminologie, représentée sous une forme algébrique, peut être produite à partir des principaux termes de parenté, suivant un principe supposé universel de structures terminologiques de la parenté. Les terminologies diffèrent, sur le plan culturel, selon les principales expressions et équations utilisées pour les élaborer. Cela implique un changement de paradigme qui nous ferait passer de la généalogie considérée comme fondement essentiel des relations...

Quantitative Differences Between the Working Memory of Chimpanzees and Humans Gives Rise to Qualitative Differences

Sat, 2 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In a recent article, it is argued that the pure working memory in humans and the chimpanzees are homologous with the same parameter values for the size of pure working memory. However, the data offered to support this claim show the opposite, namely that the pure working size of chimpanzees is smaller than that of humans. In addition, extensive data show that the effective size of working memory in the chimpanzees is much smaller than in humans. Altogether, there are qualitative differences between the chimpanzees and humans deriving from quantitative differences in the size of their working memory (pure or effective).

Quantitative Differences Between the Working Memory of Chimpanzees and Humans Gives Rise to Qualitative Differences

Sat, 26 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Intelligibility and Unintelligibility: Response to Professor Mithen’s Review of Human Thought and Social Organization: Anthropology on a New Plane by Murray Leaf and Dwight Read

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Mithen describes our book, Human Thought and Social Organization, as unintelligible. Since a previous review by Bojka Milicic showed an excellent grasp of the full range of implications of the argument and another by Radu Umbres showed a good understanding of it, we are confident that Mithen's description is wrong as a matter of fact. In our reply we address what led him astray.

Kinship Terminologies, Hypothetical or Extant, Are Optimal Solutions

Wed, 21 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The claim that extant terminologies are optimal solutions in a space of all possible terminologies depends on invalidly assuming any partition of a set of genealogical relations is a possible kinship terminology. Instead, kinship terminologies have a particular type of logical/formal structure that is generative with categories providing for classification that is reciprocal. As a consequence, all terminologies, extant or hypothetical, are optimal solutions in the sense this term is used in the claim made about kinship terminologies.

Band-Aids Versus Structural Corrections

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Alex Mesoudi observes that the “treadmill” model for relating average skill level achieved through imitation to demogaphic factors implies, incorrectly, that skill levels will increase without bound. Rather than correcting the structural problem with the model, he applies a “Band-Aid” in the form of an imitation cost to the model to force the average skill level to reach a plateau. The model, however, incorrectly assumes that the imitation bias remains constant with increasing average skill level and, when corrected, average skill level will reach a plateau even without the added cost factor.

Population Size and Technological Accumulation

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Comparing the effect of statistical distributions on the outcome of the “treadmill” model relating average skill level achieved through imitation to demogaphic factors is premature as the model incorporates an invalid assumption. The model incorrectly assumes that the imitation bias remains constant with increasing average skill level and is contradicted by data on hunter-gatherer and oceanic fishing groups showing that for these groups there is no relationship between the interacting population size and tool complexity.

A Book Review Made out of Whole Cloth

Sat, 8 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A good book review provides documentation for its evaluations, especially when they are either very positive or very negative. A good review is also faithful to what the author has written and bases criticisms or praise on accurate paraphrasing or quotes from the book. This review by Thompson fails on both accounts. Critical comments are not documented and the review is based on what Thompson imagines Read to have written, not what Read actually wrote.

Population Size Does Not Predict Artifact Complexity: Analysis of Data from Tasmania, Arctic Hunter-Gatherers, and Oceania Fishing Groups

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A mathematical model purporting to demonstrate that the interaction population size of a group of social learners is a primary determinant of the level of technological complexity achieved by the members of that group through imitation of the most skilled individual in the group has been proposed. Empirical validation of the model has been attempted with archaeological data from Tasmanian hunter-gatherers and ethnographic fishing data from Oceania, but these data do not support the model. Data from a wide variety of hunter-gatherer groups show, instead, that implement complexity varies with an interaction effect between risk and number of annual moves and not with the interaction population size. Data from the Polar (Inuit) Eskimo and the Angmaksalik Inuit on the east coast of Greenland show that complex implements were part of both group’s technological repertoire even though each had interaction population sizes limited to a few hundred individuals, in direct contradiction...

THE MISUSE OF A MATHEMATICAL MODEL: THE TASMANIAN CASE (REPLY TO HENRICH’S RESPONSE)

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Good application of a mathematical model depends on conformity with empirical observations. Mathematical models based on Dual Inheritance Theory and purporting to demonstrate that population size is a primary determinant of the complexity of tool assemblages in hunter-gatherer societies have been proposed despite their obvious contradiction with data from hunter-gatherer groups. One such model has relied on archaeological data from Tasmania for its validation, but has been extensively critiqued. A response to that critique attempts to justify the application of the model to the Tasmania data but does not succeed in so doing and still fails to address the more fundamental problem of disconnect between model prediction and empirical observation. The problem does not lie in the mathematical formulation of the model but the use of an invalid assumption when the model is used to account for variation in the complexity of tool assemblages in hunter-gatherer societies.

The long-term Evolution of Social Organization

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This chapter outlines how the ‘innovation innovation’ transformed the world of our distant ancestors into that in which we live today. It focuses on the relationship between people and the material world, as it is the material world that has been most drastically, and measurably, transformed over the last several tens of thousands of years. In view of what we know about such distant periods, and in view of the space allot-ted to us here, it will not surprise the reader that we do so in the form of a narrative that is only partly underpinned by substantive data. We emphasize this because we do not want to hide from the reader the speculative nature of the story that follows. Yet we firmly believe that, in very general terms, this scenario is correct, and that further research will vindicate us.

We first give examples of the kinds of abstractions, and the hierarchy of conceptual dimensions necessary for prehistoric human beings and their ancestors, to conquer matter, i.e....

From Population to Organization Thinking

Thu, 9 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This chapter begins by reviewing the Darwinian account of biological innovation, which is based on what Ernst Mayr calls “population thinking” and posits two kinds of key mechanisms underlying the innovation process, variation and selection. The chapter then argues that the increasingly popular tendency to adapt this account to provide the foundations for a theory of human sociocultural innovation is ill-advised. Human sociocultural organizations are self-reflexive and self-modifying, through negotiation processes that can lead to transformations in organizational structure and functionality, including the essential activities of recruitment, differentiation and coordination. Innovation in these organizations is accomplished through processes of organizational transformation, and to understand how these work, “organization thinking” rather than “population thinking” is required. The fundamental questions that organization thinking addresses include the following: What is social...

Comments on: Lyman, Lee R. 2009. “Review of Artifact Classification: A Conceptual and Methodological Approach, by Dwight Read” Journal of Anthropological Research 65:111-113

Sun, 9 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A good book review provides documentation for its evaluations, especially when they are either very positive or very negative. A good review is also faithful to what the author has written and bases criticisms or praise on accurate paraphrasing or quotes from the book. This review by Lyman fails on both accounts. Critical comments are not documented and the review is based on what Lyman imagines Read to have written, not what Read actually wrote.

The Innovation Innovation

Thu, 1 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We seek explanation for how a species with our complex social systems could have arisen. We argue that an “innovation innovation” took place during hominin evolution that decoupled organizational change from a Darwinian evolutionary process and underlies the forms of social organization we find in human societies today. We discuss enculturation as a mode of cultural transmission that enabled our species to construct and transmit forms of social organization in which individual functionality derives from systematic organization of behavior, itself subject to endogenous change. We discuss a possible evolutionary pathway through which this change in the basis for societal organization could have arisen. The evolutionary pathway incorporated new cognitive abilities that enabled constructed, conceptual relations between individuals (cultural, rather than biological, kinship), along with recursive reasoning as a way to form new relations through composition of relations, to become...

The Where-How of Leadership Emergence (WHOLE) Landscape: Charting Emergent Collective Leadership

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Leadership resources are constantly adapting to the challenge of the dynamic and complex systems in which they must function. To understand the changing leadership types and to better guide the development of new leadership resources, we propose a two-dimensional leadership landscape that provides a perspective into past leadership resources and identifies new frontiers of leadership. In the Where-How of Leadership Emergence (WHOLE) Landscape, one dimension is where leadership occurs – ranging from a single individual to the entire collective – and the other is how leadership arises – ranging from predictable – being based on the structure of the system, to unpredictable – being opportunistic and/or emergent. For simplicity this landscape is divided into four quadrants; two of the quadrants are identified with traditional centralized leadership resources: 1) power- based, hierarchical and/or predictable leadership resources and 2) the opportunistic, unpredictable, and/or emergent...

An Interaction Model for Resource Implement Complexity Based on Risk and Number of Annual Moves

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Different hypotheses identifying factors affecting the complexity of implements used to obtain food resources by hunter-gatherer groups are assessed with stepwise regression. A regression model based on interaction between growing season as a proxy measure for risk and number of yearly moves fits data on the complexity and diversity of implements for twenty hunter-gatherer groups. The interaction model leads to a division of hunter-gatherer groups into two subgroups that correspond to collector versus forager strategies for procuring resources. Implications of the interaction model for the evolution of complex implements are discussed.

A Kinship Parable

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The protagonist of the parable, Eager Graduate Student (EG), wants to apply the idea of cultural consensus and goes to the field and finds a set of terms the villagers use to refer to each other. EG elicits data by using triad questions and works out the semantic links among the terms. He finds that the semantic domain he has elicited is also a cultural domain based on consensus analysis. When he returns and talks with Prof. Silverback about his research, Prof. Silverback tells him he has been eliciting kin terms and he should go back and use a genealogical framework instead of the triad questions. EG suggests that they try a new program called Kinship Algebra Expert System and to their astonishment the program works out the logical structure for the semantic domain. Even more, it predicts the genealogical definitions of the kin terms even though EG had not asked his informants about the way kin terms relate to genealogy. Prof. Silverback is very disturbed as the computer...

What is Kinship?

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The anthropologist David Schneider suggested two decades ago that we need to consider a hypothesis other than the claim of a universal grid underlying all kinship systems as the basis for explicating the structural properties of kinship terminologies. In this paper I analyze the American/English kinship terminology viewed as a structured system of abstract symbols and establish that it has a generative structure. The analysis makes clear the sense in which a terminology is a cultural construct with an underlying logic that is not derived from the properties of a genealogical grid. The analysis leads to 100% accurate prediction of kin type definition of kin terms, thereby disproving W.H.R. Rivers’ widely accepted argument that kin terms are primarily defined through genealogical relationships. But rather than viewing either the terminological space or the genealogical grid as primary and the other as secondary, I argue that we need to view the genealogical and the terminological...

CULTURAL CONSTRUCT + INSTANTIATION = CONSTRUCTED REALITY

Fri, 9 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Standard scientific modeling uses a conceptual framework inadequate for modeling that is intended to take into account the implications of the capacity of individuals in human societies to reflexively assess goals, interests, statuses and the like. Standard scientific modeling is also insufficient for representing the shared, constructed universe -- which we subsume under the term culture -- within which individuals operate and the way individuals are capable of changing and restructuring their constructed universe. Standard scientific modeling partitions the modeling enterprise into a theoretic component (theory driven models) and an empirical component(data driven models), both assumed to be embedded within a single, fixed empirical universe. But the notion of a "constructed reality" implies that in addition to the external, empirical universe there is an internal, constructed universe within which behavior is both formulated and becomes the instrument of change. A new modeling...

Foraging society organization:A simple model of a complex transition

Sat, 26 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The evolutionary development of the hominids that culminated in the appearance of Homo sapiens included the subdivision of the species into societies on the basis of culturally, instead of biologically, constructed differentiation. It is argued that this change must have occurred after the mental ability to formulate and culturally express conceptual structures of extended relationships had been biologically introduced, and that intergroup competition within a species provided the selective impetus for this more complex form of organization. The combination of conceptual structures for organization at a more extensive scale and the effects of intergroup competition would lead to a restructuring of the whole species into society like groups.

The Navigability of Strong Ties: Small Worlds, Tie Strength and Network Topology

Thu, 3 Apr 2003 00:00:00 +0000

We examine data on and models of small world properties and parameters of social networks. Our focus, on tie-strength, multilevel networks and searchability in strong-tie social networks, allows us to extend some of the questions and findings of recent research and the fit of small world models to sociological and anthropological data on human communities. We offer a "navigability of strong ties" hypothesis about network topologies tested with data from kinship systems, and potentially applicable to corporate cultures and business networks.

The Utility of Mathematical Constructs in Building Archaeological Theory

Wed, 26 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000

The Utility of Mathematical Constructs in Building Archaeological Theory