Minds and cultures: Particle swarm implications for beings in sociocognitive space

Particle swarm theory suggests that both minds and cultures are effects of local social interaction. This paper proposes a social-psychological view o f intelligence as immerging from culture, which emerges from social interac tion. A framework for the depiction of mental states is presented, and the optimizing effect of social interaction is demonstrated. Simulated beings c alled eleMentals are shown to be able to find optimal regions in their NK-l andscape minds through an algorithm comprising two terms: a "Law of Effect" term that represents reinforcement learning, or learning from experience, and a social influence term. The model is consistent with social-psychologi cal data and theory, and the results support a hypothesis that human social ity may be in part responsible for human intelligence.