Liane Gabora
Encyclopedia
Liane Gabora is a professor of psychology
at the University of British Columbia - Okanagan
. She is best known for her theory of the "Origin of the modern mind through conceptual closure." This built on her earlier work on "Autocatalytic closure in a cognitive system: A tentative scenario for the origin of culture."
or modern ape culture. In particular, she seems to follow feminist economists and green economists in making a very strong, indeed pivotal, distinction between creative "enterprise", invention, art or "individual capital
" and imitative "meme
", rule, social category or "instructional capital
".
Gabora's views contrasts with that of memetics
and of the strongest social capital
theorists (e.g. Karl Marx
or Paul Adler) in that she seems to see, as do theorists of intellectual capital
, social signals or labels as markers of trust already invested in individual and instructional complexes - rather than as first class actors in themselves. She puts special emphasis on quantifiable archaeological data, such as the number of different arrow points styles, than on contemporary observations to minimize cultural bias
and notational bias.
Some of her recent work raises extremely controversial themes in philosophy of science
and strongly challenges the particle physics foundation ontology (e.g. studying the "violation of Bell inequalities in the macroworld"). She is also known for her contributions to the subtle technology field.
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at the University of British Columbia - Okanagan
UBC Okanagan
The University of British Columbia Okanagan is a campus of the University of British Columbia, located in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. The official name for the campus is simply UBC's Okanagan Campus, although it is frequently called 'UBCO.'...
. She is best known for her theory of the "Origin of the modern mind through conceptual closure." This built on her earlier work on "Autocatalytic closure in a cognitive system: A tentative scenario for the origin of culture."
Career
Gabora has contributed to the study of cultural evolution and evolution of societies, focusing strongly on the role of personal creativity, as opposed to memetic imitation or instruction, in differentiating modern human from prior hominidHominidae
The Hominidae or include them .), as the term is used here, form a taxonomic family, including four extant genera: chimpanzees , gorillas , humans , and orangutans ....
or modern ape culture. In particular, she seems to follow feminist economists and green economists in making a very strong, indeed pivotal, distinction between creative "enterprise", invention, art or "individual capital
Individual capital
Individual capital, also known as human capital, comprises inalienable or personal traits of persons, tied to their bodies and available only through their own free will, such as skill, creativity, enterprise, courage, capacity for moral example, non-communicable wisdom, invention or empathy,...
" and imitative "meme
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
", rule, social category or "instructional capital
Instructional capital
Instructional capital is a term used in educational administration after the 1960s, to reflect capital resulting from investment in producing learning materials....
".
Gabora's views contrasts with that of memetics
Memetics
Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...
and of the strongest social capital
Social capital
Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. The concept of social capital highlights the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective or economic results. The term social capital is frequently...
theorists (e.g. Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
or Paul Adler) in that she seems to see, as do theorists of intellectual capital
Intellectual capital
The value of an enterprise is made of physical assets, various financial assets and, finally, intangible assets, i.e., intellectual capital . The term intellectual capital conventionally refers to the difference in value between tangible assets and market value. ....
, social signals or labels as markers of trust already invested in individual and instructional complexes - rather than as first class actors in themselves. She puts special emphasis on quantifiable archaeological data, such as the number of different arrow points styles, than on contemporary observations to minimize cultural bias
Cultural bias
Cultural bias is the phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. The phenomenon is sometimes considered a problem central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology...
and notational bias.
Some of her recent work raises extremely controversial themes in philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
and strongly challenges the particle physics foundation ontology (e.g. studying the "violation of Bell inequalities in the macroworld"). She is also known for her contributions to the subtle technology field.
Sources
- Gabora, L. (1997) The origin and evolution of culture and creativity. Journal of Memetics: Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 1(1).
- Gabora, L. (1995) Meme and variations: A computer model of cultural evolution. In (L. Nadel & D. Stein, Eds.) 1993 Lectures in Complex Systems. Addison-Wesley.
- Gabora, L. & Aerts, D. (2002) Contextualizing concepts. Proceedings of the 15th International FLAIRS Conference (Special Track 'Categorization and Concept Representation: Models and Implications'), Pensacola Beach FL, May 14-17, American Association for Artificial Intelligence.
- Gabora, L. (2002) The beer can theory of creativity. In (P. Bentley & D. Corne, Eds.) Creative Evolutionary Systems. Morgan Kauffman.
- Aerts, D., Aerts, S., Broekaert, J., & Gabora, L. (2000) The violation of Bell inequalities in the macroworld. Foundations of Physics, 30 (9). [quant-ph/0007041]