On the nature of culture and communication: a complex systems perspective

1 The article describes the foundations of a new theory of communication as the generative core of cultural systems. We define the concepts of meaning and information in terms of complex systems theory; communication is considered as the interplay of social and cognitive dynamics, i.e., interactions between speakers and receivers, which are determined by social and cognitive rules. The theory is validated by several computational models developed to analyze some important aspects of the theoretical foundations. The computational models themselves are validated by some empirical social experiments with student groups.