Abstract
We present a novel model of culture that directly relates biological evolution with modern aspects of cultural evolution. The model considers the high rate of error in communication and builds on structural and evolutionary similarities between biological molecules and written language. Firstly, both written language and biological molecules are modular. Within RNA and polypeptide molecules there are structural domains that may be recombined while maintaining their function. Likewise, sentences are structured as combinations of clauses, in which each clause contains a domain of information. The clausal structure permits the recombination of information to adopt different meanings, while allowing each unit to retain its identity. Secondly, we show that some, but not all, aspects of communicated culture have a high error rate, ensuring that information exists as rapidly evolving clouds within the population. Through their intrinsically high rate of mutation, clouds of cultural information are analogous to viral quasispecies and may be modelled as such. We then integrate these ideas with the application of Shannon Diversity Index to produce a more holistic view of culture that is centered on the evolution of information. Re-imagining culture, as evolving clouds of information, unifies the mode in which information is stored culturally and biologically, and opens up new avenues of comparative analysis.