Equation 13 · Humanity Has Always Been a Human–Technology System
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effective transmission fidelity. Read the equation part by part below; each part has a contextual explanation and a link to its mathematical background.
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subscript
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What the article says around this equation
where is usable cultural complexity, is effective transmission fidelity, is validated innovation, and is loss from population disruption, inaccessible records, incompatible standards, or failed teaching. Innovation receives most historical attention, but cumulative growth requires to remain high enough that new work does not merely reconstruct forgotten prerequisites.
Sources cited in the article section
- [5] What is cumulative cultural evolution? ↗
- [4] Identification of the Social and Cognitive Processes Underlying Human Cumulative Culture ↗
- [6] The Cultural Brain Hypothesis: How culture drives brain expansion, sociality, and life history ↗
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