Is Self-Replication Required for the Growth of Knowledge?

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Dennis Hackethal’s avatar
Dennis Hackethal·​#4049·​

My neo-Darwinian approach to the mind suggests that minds evolve knowledge through the imperfect replication of ideas.

Dennis Hackethal’s avatar
Dennis Hackethal·​#4050·​·​Criticism

Some people (most notably Ella Hoeppner) have argued that replication isn’t necessary for evolution to take place. All you need is variation and selection.

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Dennis Hackethal·​#4051·​·​Criticism

My response has always been that I don’t care whether replication is a necessary component of evolution, but that, 1), in the Popperian spirit, we shouldn’t break with other evolutionary theories unnecessarily. Genes and memes both replicate.

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