Liane Gabora
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Liane Gabora is a professor of
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
at the University of British Columbia - Okanagan. She is known for her theory of the "Origin of the modern mind through conceptual closure," which built on her earlier work on "Autocatalytic closure in a cognitive system: A tentative scenario for the origin of culture."


Career

Gabora has contributed to the study of
cultural evolution Cultural evolution is an evolutionary theory of social change. It follows from the definition of culture as "information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation a ...
and
evolution of societies Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or social evolution are theories of sociobiology and cultural evolution that describe how societies and culture change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes that tend t ...
, focusing strongly on the role of personal creativity, as opposed to
memetic Memetics is a study of information and culture. While memetics originated as an analogy with Darwinian evolution, digital communication, media, and sociology scholars have also adopted the term "memetics" to describe an established empirical study ...
imitation or instruction, in differentiating modern human from prior
hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...
or modern ape culture. In particular, she seems to follow
feminist economists Feminist economics is the critical study of economics and economies, with a focus on gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis. Feminist economic researchers include academics, activists, policy theorists, and practition ...
and
green economists A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more polit ...
in making a very strong, indeed pivotal, distinction between creative "enterprise", invention, art or "
individual capital Individual capital, the economic view of talent, comprises inalienable or personal traits of persons, tied to their bodies and available only through their own free will, such as skill, creativity, enterprise, courage, capacity for moral example, ...
" and imitative "
meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
", rule, social category or "
instructional capital Instructional capital is a term used in educational administration after the 1960s, to reflect capital resulting from investment in producing learning materials. Education finance Capital (economics) {{education-stub ...
". Gabora's views contrasts with that of
memetics Memetics is a study of information and culture. While memetics originated as an analogy with Darwinian evolution, digital communication, media, and sociology scholars have also adopted the term "memetics" to describe an established empirical study ...
and of the strongest
social capital Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
theorists (e.g.
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
or
Paul Adler Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
) in that she seems to see, as do theorists of
intellectual capital Intellectual capital is the result of mental processes that form a set of intangible objects that can be used in economic activity and bring income to its owner (organization), covering the competencies of its people ( human capital), the value rela ...
, social signals or labels as markers of trust already invested in individual and instructional complexes - rather than as first class actors in themselves. She puts special emphasis on quantifiable archaeological data, such as the number of different arrow points styles, than on contemporary observations to minimize
cultural bias Cultural bias is the phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. The phenomenon is sometimes considered a problem central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology, ...
and notational bias. Some of her more recent work raises extremely controversial themes in
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
and strongly challenges the
particle physics foundation ontology Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...
(e.g. studying the "violation of Bell inequalities in the macroworld"). She is also known for her contributions to the
subtle technology Subtle may refer to: * Subtle (band), a musical group consisting of members of the anticon. hip-hop collective * Doctor Subtilis, John Duns Scotus * Subtle body, an idea in mysticism, yoga and tantra * ''The Subtle Knife'', a novel by Philip Pull ...
field. "Honing Theory: A Complex Systems Framework for Creativity" is her publication, which suggests that culture evolves through social interaction and exchange between minds that self-organise and modify based on their environment. Creativity arises due to the possibility of uncertainty and disorder, resulting in arousal and a process of novelty and originality until the arousal dissipates. This in turn feeds the cultural norm which in turn feeds further creativity resulting in part the evolution of culture.


Works

*Gabora, L. (1997) ''The origin and evolution of culture and creativity''. Journal of Memetics: Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 1(1). *Gabora, L. (1995) ''Meme and variations: A computer model of cultural evolution''. In (L. Nadel & D. Stein, Eds.) 1993 Lectures in Complex Systems. Addison-Wesley. *Gabora, L. & Aerts, D. (2002) ''Contextualizing concepts''. Proceedings of the 15th International FLAIRS Conference (Special Track 'Categorization and Concept Representation: Models and Implications'), Pensacola Beach FL, May 14–17, American Association for Artificial Intelligence. *Gabora, L. (2002) ''The beer can theory of creativity''. In (P. Bentley & D. Corne, Eds.) Creative Evolutionary Systems. Morgan Kaufmann. *Aerts, D., Aerts, S., Broekaert, J., & Gabora, L. (2000) ''The violation of Bell inequalities in the macroworld''. Foundations of Physics, 30 (9). uant-ph/0007041 *Gabora, L. (2010). Revenge of the 'neurds': Characterizing creative thought in terms of the structure and dynamics of human memory. Creativity Research Journal, 22(1), 1-13. *Gabora, L. (2017). Honing theory: A complex systems framework for creativity. Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, 21(1), 35–88.


References


External links


Liane Gabora's previous website at Free University of Brussels (VUB)Liane Gabora's Current WebSite at University of British Columbia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gabora, Liane Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Canadian psychologists University of British Columbia Okanagan faculty