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Roman roads: The hierarchical endosymbiosis of cognitive modules

Rodrick Wallace¹

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1. Division of Epidemiology, The New York State Psychiatric Institute

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Document Type:

Manuscript

Date:

Received 22 October 2009 16:47 UTC; Posted 02 November 2009

Subjects:

Ecology, Neuroscience, Earth & Environment, Evolutionary Biology

Tags:

• cognition
• endosymbiosis
• free energy
• information theory
• phase transition
• rate distortion

Abstract:

Serial endosymbiosis theory provides a unifying paradigm for examining the interaction of cognitive modules at vastly different scales of biological, social, and cultural organization. A trivial but not unimportant model associates a dual information source with a broad class of cognitive processes, and punctuated phenomena akin to phase transitions in physical systems, and associated coevolutionary processes, emerge as consequences of the homology between information source uncertainty and free energy density. The dynamics, including patterns of punctuation similar to ecosystem resilience transitions, are largely dominated by the availability of ‘Roman roads’ constituting channels for the transmission of information between modules.

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License:

This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

How to cite this document:

Wallace, Rodrick. Roman roads: The hierarchical endosymbiosis of cognitive modules. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2009.3892.1> (2009)

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