Time, knowledge and evolutionary dynamics: why connections matter

Abstract

Time matters because knowledge changes. Knightian uncertainty excludes correct procedures and proven knowledge, but makes room for imagination and creativity, which drive an evolutionary process. Human cognition relies less on logic than on pattern-making; we impose connecting principles to create patterns and causal linkages between them as representations of phenomena, which are imperfect and often subject to multiple interpretations. Stable patterns provide the necessary baseline for selection. Our personal patterns are supplemented by institutional regularities, and organisations of various kinds help to shape the development of knowledge, which grows by making connections at the various margins of existing knowledge.