| Description |
1 online resource (xi, 268 pages) : illustrations. |
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data file |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Series |
Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology
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Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology.
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| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-264) and index. |
| Contents |
Acknowledgments; Introduction; why epistemology matters; why evolution matters; ontology, selection, and convention; Part I; Part II; Part III; preestablished harmony; 1 Replicator Theories; dawkins, replicators, and memes; Memes: The Cultural Replicators; david hull: replicators and the evolution of science; Science as a Selection Process; dennett's intentional-informational replicators; What Exactly Is a Meme?; conclusion; 2 Ontologies of Evolution and Cultural Transmission; an ontology of the cell; horizontal transmission; cultural transmission as a cellular process. |
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Memetics: the ''meme's-eye view"three kinds of selfishness in evolution; lineages and populations; conclusion; 3 Population Dynamics; simple selection; modeling evolution; population models; mutation; frequency-dependent fitness; selection-mutation in fixed-size populations; sampling error or drift; conclusion; 4 Information Theory; information basics; why entropy? what metaphysics?; dretske's indicator semantics; using functions to determine informationally relevant states; a tracking efficiency measure for naturalized epistemology; information and payoffs. |
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Pareto optimization of adapted responsesconclusion: four concepts of information; 5 Selection as an Information-Transfer Process; putting it all together; states of the world and the population; the proof; other receiver characterizations; the slogan; 6 Multilevel Information Transfer; information and selection on two levels; human knowledge; common sense; objections; 7 Information in Internal States; the model: real's bumblebees; preference formation: adding a third level; variable environments; simulation results; Information and Selection; 8 Primitive Content; meaning conventions. |
| Summary |
This book is intended to help transform epistemology - the traditional study of knowledge - into a rigorous discipline by removing conceptual roadblocks and developing formal tools required for a fully naturalized epistemology. The evolutionary approach which Harms favours begins with the common observation that if our senses and reasoning were not reliable, then natural selection would have eliminated them long ago. The challenge for some time has been how to transform these informal musings about evolutionary epistemology into a rigorous theoretical discipline capable of complementing curren. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Evolution.
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Evolution. |
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Knowledge, Theory of.
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Knowledge, Theory of. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic book.
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Electronic books.
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Electronic books.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Harms, William F. Information and meaning in evolutionary processes. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004 (DLC) 2003055312 |
| ISBN |
9780511193668 |
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0511193661 |
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9780521815147 |
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0521815142 |
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0511195095 (electronic book) |
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9780511195099 (electronic book) |
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0511195753 (electronic book) |
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9780511195754 (electronic book) |
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9780511498473 (ebook) |
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0511498470 (ebook) |
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9780511194405 |
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0511194404 |
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9786610477708 |
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6610477701 |
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0511193661 |
|
0521815142 |
| Report No. |
MYILIB_CUp |
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