Formal mathematical framework for evolutionary knowledge systems
The Culture as Computation program develops a formal mathematical framework treating cultural transmission as a form of evolutionary computation. The central question: under what conditions do oral tradition systems transition from noisy cultural drift to stable, self-correcting information preservation?
Is there a critical threshold of environmental feedback above which oral traditions become self-correcting? The observability gradient from the Emergent Precision program suggests yes — but the mathematical conditions have not been formally characterized.
Cultural transmission shares formal properties with evolutionary algorithms: variation (storytelling creativity), selection (environmental feedback), and inheritance (intergenerational teaching). Can this analogy be made rigorous?
Multiple independent cultures developed similar fire management practices. Is this convergence evidence of environmental computation — the same optimization problem producing the same solution across isolated populations?
This program is currently in the theoretical development phase. The first paper is expected in late 2026.