Tools as "petrified memes": A duality

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Philosophy of Technology
• Anthropology

Background:

• Tools are fundamental to human activity and technological development.
• Understanding tool creation and evolution is key to understanding human cognition and culture.

Purpose of the Study:

• To define the cognitive and social processes underlying tool generation and technical reasoning.
• To explore the concept of tools as materialized memes within active externalism.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of tool affordances and mental representations.
• Examination of tool exchange, variation, and selection as a social process.
• Application of active externalism framework to tool evolution.

Main Results:

• Tools emerge from recombining mental representations, constituting "technical reasoning."
• Novel tools arise from the execution of this technical reasoning.
• Tools function as "petrified" memes, exchanged and selected within a social context.

Conclusions:

• Tool generation is a cognitive and social phenomenon driven by "technical reasoning."
• The concept of materialized memes provides a framework for understanding tool evolution.
• Active externalism offers a lens to view the duality of tools as cognitive and material entities.