Embedded in E.O. Wilson’s views on sociobiology is a theory of mind. It’s not specifically his. Other scientists seem to fall into something similar almost as a default position.
Wilson’s starting point: Social behaviors are transmitted by culture, but culture is a product of the brain. Our inherited traits limit what kind of things we can consider — what kinds of things are possible.
Wilson thought that the question of how genetic and cultural evolution interact was one of the great unexplored realms of science. He called it “gene-culture coevolution.”
Over the course of a lifetime, the mind of the individual person creates itself by picking among countless fragments of information, value judgements, and available courses of action within the context of a particular culture. More concretely, the individual comes to select certain marital customs, creation myths, ethical precepts, modes of analysis, and so forth, from among those available. We call these competing behaviors and mental abstractions “culturgens.” They are close to what our fellow reductionist Richard Dawkins conceived as “memes.”
Philosophy of mind is a thorny specialty, and I enjoyed watching a biologist, rather than a philosopher, tackle of its questions. Saying what a human mind is like is difficult, but I like the ancient metaphor. In some ways, an individual mind is like a collection. What’s in your cabinet of curiosities is different from what’s in mine. We might collect some similar items, and so we could say we have some shared interests. But we can’t assume that everyone else will be interested in the same things.
The activity of collecting is important, I think. It’s the idea behind forming canons in literature and other arts. I think it’s vital that each generation examine its cultural inheritance. It contains fabulous riches but also deadly poisons.
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