TY - JOUR
T1 - Embodiment vs. Memetics
AU - Bryson, Joanna J
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - The term embodiment identifies a theory that meaning and semantics
cannot be captured by abstract, logical systems, but are dependent on an agent’s
experience derived from being situated in an environment. This theory has recently
received a great deal of support in the cognitive science literature and is having
significant impact in artificial intelligence. Memetics refers to the theory that
knowledge and ideas can evolve more or less independently of their human-agent
substrates. While humans provide the medium for this evolution, memetics holds
that ideas can be developed without human comprehension or deliberate interference.
Both theories have profound implications for the study of language—its
potential use by machines, its acquisition by children and of particular relevance to
this special issue, its evolution. This article links the theory of memetics to the
established literature on semantic space, then examines the extent to which these
memetic mechanisms might account for language independently of embodiment. It
then seeks to explain the evolution of language through uniquely human cognitive
capacities which facilitate memetic evolution.
AB - The term embodiment identifies a theory that meaning and semantics
cannot be captured by abstract, logical systems, but are dependent on an agent’s
experience derived from being situated in an environment. This theory has recently
received a great deal of support in the cognitive science literature and is having
significant impact in artificial intelligence. Memetics refers to the theory that
knowledge and ideas can evolve more or less independently of their human-agent
substrates. While humans provide the medium for this evolution, memetics holds
that ideas can be developed without human comprehension or deliberate interference.
Both theories have profound implications for the study of language—its
potential use by machines, its acquisition by children and of particular relevance to
this special issue, its evolution. This article links the theory of memetics to the
established literature on semantic space, then examines the extent to which these
memetic mechanisms might account for language independently of embodiment. It
then seeks to explain the evolution of language through uniquely human cognitive
capacities which facilitate memetic evolution.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=43949094488&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11299-007-0044-4
U2 - 10.1007/s11299-007-0044-4
DO - 10.1007/s11299-007-0044-4
M3 - Article
SN - 1860-1839
VL - 7
SP - 77
EP - 94
JO - Mind & Society
JF - Mind & Society
IS - 1
ER -