Selection Criteria for the Evolution of Knowledge

One of the essential issues of the Principia Cybernetica Project, which aims at the development of an evolutionary-cybernetic philosophy (Turchin, 1991; Heylighen, 1991ab), is epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. When we look at the history of epistemology, we can discern a clear trend, in spite of the confusion of many seemingly contradictory positions. The first theories of knowledge, such as Platonic idealism, empiricism and the reflection-correspondence theory stressed its absolute, passive and permanent character. These approaches try to formulate unambiguous, fixed criteria for distinguishing “true” or “real” knowledge from “false” one. Later theories, starting with conventionalism, pragmatism and up to constructivism, put the emphasis on the relativity or situation-dependence of knowledge, its continuous development or evolution, and its active interference with the world and its subjects and objects. Here the criteria, such as problem-solving competence, coherence and consensus are more context-dependent and variable. A more synthetic outlook is offered by evolutionary epistemology (Campbell, 1974). Here it is assumed that knowledge is constructed by the subject or group of subjects in order to adapt to their environment in the broad sense. Construction happens through blind variation of existing pieces of knowledge, and the selective retention of those new combinations that somehow contribute most to the survival and reproduction of the subject(s) within their given environment. Multiple criteria, biological, cognitive as well as social, determine which knowledge survives that ongoing process of natural selection. A most recent, and perhaps most radical approach, extends this evolutionary view in order to make knowledge actively pursue goals of its own. This approach, which as yet has not had the time to develop a proper epistemology, may be called memetics (Dawkins, 1976; Moritz, 1991; Heylighen, 1992a). It notes that knowledge can be transmitted from one subject to another, and thereby loses its dependence on any single individual. A piece of knowledge that can be transmitted or replicated in such a way is called a “meme”. The death of an individual carrying a certain meme now no longer implies the elimination of that piece of knowledge, as evolutionary epistemology would assume. As long as a meme spreads more quickly to new carriers, than that its carriers die, the meme will proliferate, even though the knowledge it induces in any individual carrier may be wholly inadequate and even dangerous to survival. In this view a piece of knowledge may be successful (in the sense that it is common or has many carriers)