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Presents observations on the conference papers on cultural systems and organizational processes in the U.S. Basis for descriptive precision; Identification of the most basic empirical questions regarding culture; Distinct formalization of social systems.

Presents an overview of the panel papers on cybernetics and systems research presented at a session on Cultural Systems in Europe. Mathematical approaches applied to central problems addressed by cultural anthropologists; Awards and achievements of the panel papers; Discussion on mathematical methodology in the published work.

The papers in this volume generally represent new developments in anthropology and cultural theory. Inevitably, in an evolutionary flowering, divergence can occur. Two of the papers represent a very new approach to theory for anthropology. This note discusses issues related to construction of theory that distinguish those papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of culture and the significance of anthropological involvement in applied areas of economics, development, and business. The culture concept is not only of great interest to anthropology, management studies, and other disciplines concerned with modeling human interaction, but also to domains in which human interaction may at first glance appear to be antithetical to the desired processes. Many people admit that greater consideration of culture appears to be helpful if projects involving different culture and conditions.

Cultural theory is a natural science, with properties similar to other natural sciences; it observes natural events and creates testable, and tested, theories. Mathematical anthropology is the body of mathematics used to construct theories of culture. A mathematical theory of certain key features of culture now exists. This theory is predictive and verifiable, much in the same way that physical theory is predictive and verifiable by comparison to independent observations. The mathematical theory of culture has been successfully applied to interpret cultural structural changes over time, computing the population changes associated with structural changes over time and interpreting specific events. These facts therefore imply that a more general theory, not only of culture but of history, is possible and show how it can be constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans societies have adapted mechanisms for dealing with large amounts of information, some of which has hitherto not been encountered by members of the societies. Theories of communication, which posit that the medium upon which a message is transmitted is itself an integral part of the communication process, clarify the analytical utility of the culture concept in ways that account for empirical data. Using ethnographic cases of role relations learned in one sociocultural context that serve as a kind of cultural template for other sociocultural contexts, it is possible to identify the processes of information processing that lie at the level of culture, as well as individual, agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore the relationship between culture, knowledge and behaviour in a context of change, comparing scientific with cultural knowledge. I argue that applications (or instantiations) of scientific knowledge are not the same as science, and undergo a process that has properties not unlike those described by Ellen and Harris for ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ (IK). This process uses knowledge that is not derived from the system represented, but nevertheless is necessary for the system to operate in a contingent world even though this knowledge was not in the original subset of knowledge being applied. This consideration of knowledge about what contexts must be instantiated to enable domain knowledge to be instantiated builds on Ellen's concept of prehension, which in part includes the anticipatory knowledge a subject brings to a situation. I suggest the operative principles in IK have similar properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive relativity, rationality, and clarity are considered to be the core principles in mathematical modeling of cognitive mechanisms of origin, development, and evolution of cultures. The contextual theory of cognitive states based on context formalization, cognitive measurements, and algebra and logic of contexts is proposed for the modeling of cultural systems, from tuning to particular contexts and experiences to simulating multicontextual cultural spaces and predicting possible ways of cultural development and evolution. Modeling cognitive relativity leads to actor-centered descriptions of cultural knowledge, which is based on tuning to the relative cultural (or individual) contexts, recognizing typical patterns, and measuring cognitive distances. Flexible context-sensitive descriptions of knowledge are automatically generated, maximizing cognitive clarity. The principle of cognitive rationality—maximizing cognitive confidence in decision making—is introduced as a means of modeling individual and cultural behavior. Embodiment of the theory in E-machines is described to illustrate its analytical and practical use to anthropologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Society’ and ‘culture’ are defined as mutually constitutive in an agent-based framework. Culture is the learned, shared knowledge of actions, relations, emotions, attitudes, values, and so forth that enable people in social units to behave in ways that others can understand—whether cooperatively, competitively, or in avoidance of one another—and to understand and interpret the behavior of others. Society is the panoply of groupings or communities of people within which culture is shared; these groupings are delineated by shared culture, and it is shared culture that enables members to be recognized. Societal groups and their attendant culture can be explicitly and overtly recognized or can be only implicitly recognized. Within this frame the ways in which culture and language (as either a major cultural subsystem or a closely parallel system) are understood, transmitted, and learned by members of communities are explored. The role and nature of flexibility and its attendant requirement of productivity and thus systematicity are considered. The ways in which learners construct systematic representations of cultural systems on the basis of imperfect and incomplete experience, the role of salience and frequency of experience, and a psychological disposition toward simplicity are seen as factors in the imperfect (but systematically repeated) transmission of cultural and linguistic systems that allows culture to adapt and that results in culture change and linguistic drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When anthropologists talk about their discipline as a holistic study of human societies, particularly non-Western societies, mathematics and mathematical modeling do not immediately come to mind, either to persons outside of anthropology or even to most anthropologists. What does mathematics have to do with the study of religious beliefs, ideologies, rituals, kinship, and the like? Or, more generally, what does mathematical modeling have to do with culture? The application of statistical methods usually makes sense to the questioner when it is explained that these methods relate to the study of human societies through examining patterns in empirical data on how people behave. What is less evident, though, is how mathematical thinking can be part of the way anthropologists reason about human societies and attempt to make sense of not just behavioral patterns but the underlying cultural framework within which these behaviors are embedded. What is not widely recognized is the way theory in cultural anthropology and mathematical theory have been brought together, thereby constructing a dynamic interplay that helps elucidate what is meant by culture, its relationship to behavior, and how the notion of culture relates to concepts and theories developed not only in anthropology but in related disciplines. The interplay is complex and its justification stems from the kind of logical inquiry that is the basis of mathematical reasoning. Linking of mathematical theory with cultural theory, we argue, is not only appropriate but may very well be necessary for more effective development of theory aimed at providing a holistic understanding of human behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]