Creatures of Norms as Uncanny Niche Constructors

0364684 - FLÚ 2012 RIV GB eng C - Conference Paper (international conference)
Peregrin, Jaroslav
Creatures of Norms as Uncanny Niche Constructors.
Knowledge, Value, Evolution. London: College Publications, 2011 - (Hříbek, T.; Hvorecký, J.), s. 189-190. Texts in Philosophy, 15. ISBN 978-1-84890-043-1.
[Knowledge, Value, Evolution. Praha (CZ), 23.11.2009-25.11.2009]
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GAP401/10/0146
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z90090514
Keywords : evolution * rules * gene-culture coevolution * virtual niches
Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion

Unlike other species, humans have not only tampered with their environment, but entirely rebuilt it. Moreover, along with the reshuffling of the existing elements of the environment and erecting brand new, artificial elements atop of them, 'virtual environments' have been brought into being, in which the physical barriers of the natural world are largely replaced or supplemented by artificial ones. What the artificial barriers of our 'virtual worlds' are made of are rules (understood as social institutions that can affect people as powerfully as physical restraints). However rules are also at the core of the human ability to pass on behavioral patterns. In this way, rules appear to be the true key to human distinctiveness - their emergence, i.e. the emergence of our ancestors' abilities to think in the 'normative mode', has endowed us with a complex package of distinctively human features, including the ability to develop culture and to build virtual niches.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0200102