The historical process of human development (cultural evolution) demonstrates the development of culture. One culture replaces another, inheriting some of the features of the previous one. These changes occur much faster than the processes in biological evolution.
The presence of the evolution of human culture indicates that three conditions necessary for its course are fulfilled. But inheritance in culture is the inheritance of acquired properties that cannot be carried out with the help of genes. It can be concluded that the observed human cultural evolution, apparently, occurs with the help of other replicators (not genes) and a different inheritance mechanism.
Therefore, we can talk about the cultural (social) evolution of man, as evolution without genes, occurring with the help of other replicators. Over the past millennia, the appearance of new significant morphological changes in a person has not been seen, he has remained the same as he was. All changes in the conditions of existence are determined by the cultural evolution of a person.
Culture and mentality
It is time to define the concept of the term «Culture». You can find many definitions of the phenomenon of culture, which are given by people from different points of view. All these definitions are based on attempts to grasp the common in different types of cultural manifestations.
Another approach is based on defining a culture in terms of how it is inherited. The most convincing is the definition of the remarkable cultural scientist Yu. Lotman:
«Culture is a collection of genetically non-inherited information in the field of human behavior. Art is part of culture along with science.»
The term «mentality» comes from the Latin «mind, thinking, way of thinking, mental disposition», meaning a general mental attitude, a relatively holistic set of thoughts, beliefs, skills that creates a picture of the world in the head. Mentality is both a characteristic of the type of thinking (consciousness) and the subconscious activity of the brain.
A prerequisite for evolution in populations or societies is natural selection. In the cultural evolution of a person, adaptations consist in changing the mentality, which changes (adapts) a person’s behavior in such a way as to adapt it to external conditions, including the social environment.
But cultural adaptations do not arise at birth, but during life with the development of the mind. Since these mental adaptations are not inherited through genes, the question arises as to how they are passed on to subsequent generations. What replicators help this process take place? This issue will be discussed later.
Clarification of the term «cultural evolution»
Please note that it is incorrect to talk about the evolution of culture in itself. Culture is recorded in the form of traces of human activities. Culture is an inanimate substance and cannot evolve as a living one, with the creation of adaptations. The evolution of culture is manifested through changes in the discovered traces of human activity in different eras. If the traces of a person’s activity change, then apparently because the person himself changes, his thinking (mentality) and, as a result, his behavior change.
A person has morphologically changed insignificantly during the historical period, but his «soul» has changed. And speaking in scientific language, the mentality of a person has changed.
When anthropologists talk about changes in the bones of ancient animals from different eras they found, they conclude about the evolution of one or another species, and not about the evolution of the bones themselves. It’s the same with culture. An important clarification is that it is not the evolution of culture, but the cultural evolution of man.
When they start talking about the evolution of culture in itself, they fall into a logical dead end. It is impossible to talk about the evolution of an inanimate entity. And here art historians, philosophers and everyone who joined them are trying to find a way out, talking about the inheritance of elements from different cultures. This is a conversation about nothing. Warm and heavy cannot be combined in one theory.
Some cultural researchers see this incongruity. Cultural anthropologists such as Julian Steward drew attention to the Darwinian concept of «adaptation» in the middle of the 20th century, arguing that all societies must adapt to the environment in one way or another.
Functional adaptations of the brain
The activity of the brain is a change in the functional state of its individual fragments (neurons). The essence of functional changes can be demonstrated using the example of a water tap. The water tap has two positions – «Open» and «Closed». The difference between these two functional states of the crane cannot be determined visually. The tap looks the same in both positions. If you supply water to its input, then the difference in these states will immediately be revealed. The difference manifests itself in the work, i.e. in behavior.
Mentality should be considered as a result caused by all functional states of parts of the brain, both consciousness, subconsciousness and unconsciousness. To a large extent, only the unconscious can be inherited, since it is the result of the work of genes.
Therefore, the mentality can only be partially inherited, and transmitted by genetics to the next generation of the species.
On the mechanisms of creation and preservation of cultural adaptations in the following chapters.
Culture and cultural evolution
From the point of view of sociobiology, culture can be defined in this way.
Culture is a manifestation in human behavior and thinking of a set of functional adaptations of the brain that arose as a result of the historical process of development of the species Homo sapiens, which are transmitted from person to person, from generation to generation in a non-genetic way.
Those who are trying to give a definition of culture that could combine into one group, for example, poetry, ballet and painting, cannot understand that such attempts are not constructive. Many philosophical definitions of culture have been invented, and none of them is meaningful. At the same time, everyone notes the complexity of constructing such a definition.
So you took the wrong side, gentlemen. Human culture can be correctly defined in terms of sociobiology, not philosophy.
It is obvious that cultural manifestations should be united not according to the ways of expressing thoughts, emotions, behavior in them, but according to the way these manifestations are inherited in societies. Culture is the accumulation and manifestation of the development of various aspects of the human personality, and what is common to all manifestations is that they are accumulated and transmitted to subsequent generations in a non-genetic way.
The evolution of culture should be considered as a change in time of the preserved manifestations (traces) of activity in different spheres of the social (living in society) man, just as the change in time of the remains of ancient animals is traces of biological evolution.
The term «culture» in this formulation acquires an expansive meaning, since it covers both science and religious beliefs, as was pointed out by the cultural scientist Yu. Lotman. It is impossible to argue with the fact that humanity is evolving. But not like other primates, not like other species. This is especially noticeable over the past 300 years, when science acquired a systematic character, uniting the islands of knowledge of previous eras.
Human evolution due to functional adaptations of the brain is fast, compared to slow biological evolution, which can therefore be ignored when analyzing the changes that occur in societies. You will not find an