Behavior and Culture in One Dimension

It's a simple idea with important implications. From cells to civilizations, complex systems are built on a foundation of one-dimensional patterns that choreograph three-dimensional behavior. DNA, human language, and computer code are examples of these linear arrangements. We call them sequences, and they have a common functional logic. This book invites you to explore their one-dimensional world.

Sequences of DNA guide the functioning of the living world, sequences of speech and writing choreograph the intricacies of human culture, and sequences of code oversee the operation of our literate technological civilization. These linear patterns function under their own rules, which have never been fully explored. It is time for them to get their due.

This book explores the one-dimensional sequences that orchestrate the structure and behavior of our three-dimensional habitat. Using Gibsonian concepts of perception, action, and affordances, as well as the works of Howard Pattee, the book examines the role of sequences in the human behavioral and cultural world of speech, writing, and mathematics.

The book offers a Darwinian framework for understanding human cultural evolution and locates the two major informational transitions in the origins of life and civilization. It will be of interest to students and researchers in ecological psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, and the social and biological sciences.