Evolution of Collective Computational Abilities of (Pre)Historic Societies

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Evolution of Collective Computational Abilities of (Pre)Historic Societies
November 2 — 4, 2020 - Zoom

It has recently been learned that as they evolve, all early human societies first grown in size without developing their information-processing sophistication very much, then they switch to a mode where they develop their information-processing sophistication without growing much, and then they switch back to a mode in which they grow in size. In this working group we will investigate many aspects of this phenomenon: What are the fine-grained details of how the many different kinds of information-processing and different kinds of size growth co-evolve? Do similar “mode-switches” involving information-processing sophistication happen at later stages in the evolution of human societies? How should we best combine the time-series’ of many different societies to glean such high-level characteristics of social development? What underlying theories about how groups of people collectively process information best explain these phenomena.

All activities will be conducted in English.
Participants are welcome from all countries.