📚 📈Words Evolve: Why Language, Memes and Brains Follow the Logic of Evolution 🧬🧠 In this episode of the Zoomposium series on consciousness, philosopher Daniel C. Dennett explores a powerful and provocative idea: words are not just internal mental representations — they are real entities in the world that exist across brains, books, sound waves, screens and signs. From this perspective, language behaves less like a static system stored inside the brain and more like a living evolutionary process. Words spread, mutate, compete, and persist — much like genes. Dennett connects this directly to the concept of memes and cultural evolution: ideas do not need to be “alive” to evolve. Even viruses, he reminds us, follow evolutionary dynamics despite not being living organisms in the traditional sense. What emerges is a striking shift in perspective: the brain is not the sole location of meaning, but one node in a vast, evolving ecosystem of information. Language lives between minds as much as within them. The conversation also touches on Dennett’s broader philosophy of mind — from consciousness as a functional process to his multiple drafts model and his naturalistic approach to cognition. Together, these ideas challenge intuitive notions of self, meaning and mental representation, and open the door to thinking about intelligence — biological or artificial — as an evolving pattern rather than a fixed substance. A fascinating exploration of how evolution doesn’t stop at biology — it continues in culture, language, and thought itself. 📽 Interview: https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk 📎 Information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/