Abstract
Double contingency—each of us (Ego) expects others (Alter) to entertain expectations as we entertain them ourselves—can be considered as the micro-operation of an above-individual (i.e., social) logic of expectations. Meaning is provided to events from the perspective of hindsight, but with reference to horizons of meaning. Whereas “natural selection” is based on genotypes that are observable (like DNA), cultural selection mechanisms are not hard-wired, but evolve. The “genotypes” of cultural evolution are codes in the communication which can operate as selections upon one another. Local instantiations shape trajectories; regimes operate as selection pressure with reference to the next-order horizons of meaning. These orders of expectations can operate incursively and hyper-incursively against the arrow of time and thus generate redundancies: (i) horizons of meaning can be expected to overlap and (ii) distinctions generate new options enlarging the maximum capacities. Information theory and the theory of anticipatory systems can be used for the elaboration of operations against the arrow of time. New options can be a synergetic effect of interactions among codes in the communication and serve as sources of wealth in a knowledge-based economy.
Highlights
The “genotypes” of cultural evolution are codes in the communication which can operate as selections upon one another
We shall argue in this contribution, that the exchanges of and interactions among expectations are not epi-genetic, but shape a cultural layer with a dynamic operating as a feedback on the carriers of this evolution
Freud commented at a workshop in Vienna in 1926 “that he felt like the skipper of a barge who had al ways hugged the coast, who had learned that others, more adven turous, had set out for the open sea.”
Summary
In his influential book entitled Descartes’ Error, Damasio (1994) argued that Descartes’ statement Cogito ergo sum (“I think I am”) has been a major source of error in Western philosophy. In a paper enti tled “The End of Theory,” Anderson (2008), for example, formulated the program of “big data” as follows: This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathe matics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. 12; cf Leydesdorff, 2018) These various authors have in common that their program is to reduce cultural phenomena to biological and computational principles (Porankiewicz-Zukowska, 2017). Hoegl can generate redundancies; for example, by refining distinctions In this model, humans are not at the top of “the” hierarchy, but can function as infra-reflexive linchpins among hierarchies and heterarchies of variably codified communications. Not Homo sapiens sapiens but the complexity of the communication among humans is further evolving in terms of new recombinations among codes
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