I agree with your general model of the proxy, but human brains are clearly more complex than just optimizing for cultural values. It’s more like culture/memes is a new layer of replicators evolving in tandem with (but much faster) than genes. The genes may determine the architectural prior for the brain and reward functions etc, but the memes are the dataset which more determines the resulting mind. Our reward circuitry hasn’t changed that much recently, so the proxy is mostly still pre-cultural, but cultural software has evolved on top to exploit/cooperate/control that circuitry.
I agree with your general model of the proxy, but human brains are clearly more complex than just optimizing for cultural values. It’s more like culture/memes is a new layer of replicators evolving in tandem with (but much faster) than genes. The genes may determine the architectural prior for the brain and reward functions etc, but the memes are the dataset which more determines the resulting mind. Our reward circuitry hasn’t changed that much recently, so the proxy is mostly still pre-cultural, but cultural software has evolved on top to exploit/cooperate/control that circuitry.