Ebook: An Essay Concerning Sociocultural Evolution: Theoretical Principles and Mathematical Models

Writing about sociocultural evolution is always a complicated enterprise, because the subject is not only difficult in a scientific way but also in a political one. In particular since the events of September 11, 2001 the debates about the differences between cultures and their evolutionary developments have left the fields of pure scientific research once and for all. However, there have probably never been scientific discourses that did not touch the realms of political discussions - Darwin, Marx, the atomic physicists and the recent debates about genetic engineering are just a few examples. The aim of this book is not to take part in these debates but it is written as a contribution to the foundations of evolutionary theories in the social sciences. The readers will have to judge if I have succeeded with it. Perhaps essays like this one will help to clarify the problems we all have to face just now in regard to intercultural discourses. Theoretically and mathematically grounded insights into cultural development as the source of many political problems will not solve to how to deal with them them immediately but may serve as signposts in the long run.

The volume deals with the question of regularities in the course of sociocultural evolution. The evolutionary process of societies is defined as the generation of social roles and their relations; a role is understood as a pair of social rules and role specific knowledge. Accordingly evolution is the growth of cultural knowledge and the development of a network of social roles. These theoretical assumptions are clarified and tested via a mathematical model, i.e., a sociocultural algorithm (SCA). Computer simulations show that the evolutionary course of societies is determined by an evolutionary parameter, that is the degree of differentiation or role autonomy respectively. An additional model of cognitive ontogenesis is provided; it can be shown that cognitive ontogenesis and sociocultural evolution are interdependent processes which basically follow the same logic. These considerations and results offer an explanation for the unique evolutionary path of Western civilization.