Imitation, social learning, dopamine &c.

Descendants (at least 24 branches originate here)

• Imitation, social learning, dopamine &c.

  Freud, Dawkins, Rizzolatti

  • is_parent MindBrain 🔒 ·

    The MindBrain is the living, learning, self-modifying system through which we perceive, remember, interpret and act.Not just the brain. Not a ghost in the machi
  • is_parent What a MindBrain can do 🔒 ·

    Copy — imitation, habituation & habit, memorization & recallChange — plasticity, association, generalization, variation & recombinationC
  • is_parent Five roles in the memetic game 🔒 ·

    Host — it carries patterns it did not inventReplicator — it repeats them: speech, gesture, drawing, habitMutator — it misremembers, reinterpre

    ↝ is_linked → Genes and Memes Compared ↝ is_linked → From Meme to Memeplex
  • is_parent Experiment · The Whispering Chain 🔒 ·

    Five volunteers. The first reads this text, hides it, and writes it down from memory for the next. Nobody sees the original.On the third night the fox crossed t
  • is_parent Replicate · Vary · Select 🔒 ·

    Replication + Variation + SelectionReplication — imitationVariation — play, curiosity, dreaming, forgetting, FehlleistungenSelection — Bandura

    ↝ is_linked → The Engine of Evolution
  • is_parent A body first 🔒 ·

    Before it is a student, an artist or a meme host, the MindBrain belongs to an animal that has to:eatmatestay safestay in the group — rank, grooming, coali

    ↝ is_linked → Evolutionary Psychology ↝ is_linked → Libido, Id, Ego, Superego
  • is_parent Archetypes 🔒 ·

    “An instinctive trend.”Jung: archetypes are inborn tendencies to form certain images — Mother, Child, Hero, Shadow, Trickster, Wise Old Man.No

    ↝ is_linked → Archetypes ↝ is_linked → Mother ↝ is_linked → Shadow ↝ is_linked → Trickster ↝ is_linked → Child
  • is_parent Which memes win? 🔒 ·

    The ones that feed a need or press an archetype.Food videos. Sex appeal. Outrage and threat. Gossip and rank. Belonging.Hero stories, villain stories, the trick

    ↝ is_linked → Exercise · Find One
  • is_parent Dopamine · wanting 🔒 ·

    Hebb: cells that fire together wire together. Dopamine decides which firing counts.Dopamine is not the pleasure molecule.It is the wanting molecule: go, get it,

    ↝ is_linked → Hebb's Law ↝ is_linked → Law of Effect ↝ is_linked → Reinforcement learning
  • is_parent Dopamine · surprise and the herd 🔒 ·

    Dopamine reports better than expected, not reward (Schultz).Expected and delivered: silence. Unexpected: burst. Expected and missing: dip.That is how habits &md

    ↝ is_linked → Conditioning ↝ is_linked → Social Psychology
  • is_parent Mirror neurons 🔒 ·

    See → do.Macaque premotor cortex (Rizzolatti, Parma): the same neurons fire when the monkey grasps and when it sees a grasp.A neural footprint of imitation

    ↝ is_linked → Mirror neurons ↝ is_linked → Imitation
  • is_parent Prenatal · the first meme 🔒 ·

    Before any input: spontaneous kicks, spontaneous neural firing — variation with no outside cause.From about the 25th week the fetus hears. Newborns know t

    ↝ is_linked → Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology
  • is_parent Infancy · the first selectors 🔒 ·

    Milk, warmth, a face: food and safety arrive bundled with a person.Smile at six weeks. Serve and return. Tronick's still face: stop responding and the baby prot

    ↝ is_linked → Developmental Psychology
  • is_parent Toddlers copy everything 🔒 ·

    Kuhl: nine-month-olds relearn Mandarin sounds from a live person — not from a video of the same person.Over-imitation: children copy even useless steps. C
  • is_parent Bandura 🔒 ·

    Bobo doll, 1961: children saw an adult hit it — and hit it too.Model rewarded: more imitation. Model punished: less (1965).Attention → retention &rar

    ↝ is_linked → Social Learning Theory ↝ is_linked → Social learning
  • is_parent Whom do we copy? 🔒 ·

    Those who look at us and speak slowly. The majority. The successful. The similar — same accent, same group.Children track who has been right before.Primat
  • is_parent Variation · play and curiosity 🔒 ·

    Play is copying with mistakes allowed.Children explore more and exploit less than adults (Gopnik).Curiosity pays: information itself is rewarded by dopamine.Var
  • is_parent Variation · dreaming and forgetting 🔒 ·

    Babies spend about half of their sleep in REM. Dreams remix what the day stored — why exactly, nobody knows.Forgetting is fast: Ebbinghaus's curve. Before

    ↝ is_linked → Birth of dream psychology ↝ is_linked → Forgetting curve
  • is_parent Variation · Fehlleistungen 🔒 ·

    Versprechen, Verlesen, Vergessen, Verlieren: Freud's VER-.Not random: a second plan breaking through the first.Children say “goed” and “mouses

    ↝ is_linked → Fehlleistungen ↝ is_linked → Discussion & Homework
  • is_parent Adolescence · sex and the herd take the wheel 🔒 ·

    Reward sensitivity peaks, self-control matures later.Teens take more risks when peers watch (Chein). A “like” lights up the reward system (Sherman).

    ↝ is_linked → Anima ↝ is_linked → Animus ↝ is_linked → Social Psychology
  • is_parent Adolescence · the editor arrives 🔒 ·

    The prefrontal cortex keeps maturing into the mid-twenties.Metacognition: I notice that I am copying.Shadow: what I deny in myself I project onto others.The hos

    ↝ is_linked → Shadow ↝ is_linked → Memethical Engineering
  • is_parent Reveal and exercise 🔒 ·

    The last version of the chain versus the original: what dropped, what was added, what became more typical?Which gatekeeper did it: food, sex, danger, group? Whi

    ↝ is_linked → Exercise · Find One ↝ is_linked → Copied?
  • is_parent Take home 🔒 ·

    Replication: imitation, with a body that mirrors.Variation: play, curiosity, dreams, forgetting, slips.Selection: other people, driven by bodies that want food,