Evolutionary theory describes the dynamics of population change in settings affected by reproduction, selection, mutation, and drift. In the context of human cognition, evolutionary theory is most often invoked to explain the origins of capacities such as language, metacognition, and spatial reasoning, framing them as functional adaptations to an ancestral environment. However, evolutionary theory is useful for understanding the mind in a second way: as a mathematical framework for describing evolving populations of thoughts, ideas, and memories within a single mind. In fact, deep correspondences exist between the mathematics of evolution and of learning, with perhaps the deepest being an equivalence between certain evolutionary dynamics and Bayesian inference. This equivalence permits reinterpretation of evolutionary processes as algorithms for Bayesian inference and has relevance for understanding diverse cognitive capacities, including memory and creativity.

中文翻译：

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心智进化：进化动力学、认知过程和贝叶斯推理

进化论描述了受繁殖、选择、突变和漂移影响的环境中种群变化的动态。在人类认知的背景下，进化论最常被用来解释语言、元认知和空间推理等能力的起源，将它们构建为对祖先环境的功能性适应。然而，进化理论对于以第二种方式理解心智是有用的：作为描述单个心智中不断进化的思想、想法和记忆群体的数学框架。事实上，进化数学和学习数学之间存在着深刻的对应关系，其中最深的可能是某些进化动力学和贝叶斯推理之间的等价关系。