The Evolution of Semantic Systems

Abstract

Semantic or cultural systems are sets of concepts connected by meaningful relationships, and they exhibit properties similar to those of populations of biological organisms. Drawing upon ideas from evolutionary biology and methods from information technology, this article explores the potential for research and engineering on the evolution of semantic systems. Such work in cultural genetics requires two things: (1) a rigorous but evolving taxonomic system to categorize cultural artifacts, elements, and clusters, and (2) a set of hypotheses about the processes that cause evolutionary change. This article illustrates systematic approaches to cultural taxonomy with data on the popular ideology of the space program, science fiction motion pictures, nanotechnology books, and nanotechnology research grants. It offers hypotheses derived from evolutionary and population biology that might be useful in explaining cultural evolution.

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