ABSTRACT
With regard to material culture, one of her examples concerns the manner in which jazz composers have developed a special written notation to help keep their various harmonic constraints in mind while making new compositions. But a large part of her chapter is in fact devoted to the use of material culture in facilitating thought about thinking, as she explains how computational approaches-computer programs falling broadly under the remit of artificial intelligence-can help us understand human creativity. This use of computational methods in human psychology is analogous to the manner in which archaeologists can use computer programs to understand past processes of human behaviour. Moreover, as I argue later in the volume, the very first use of symbolic codes by humans is also likely to have been as a means to develop an understanding of human thought processes themselves.
