Mixed natural and cultural selection brought about genetic and meaning changes, shaped the biocultural traits of proto-humans, strengthened some of their aspects and weakened others, resulting in psychophysiological, moral-volitional and cognitive distortions in proto-humans. In short, mixed selection shaped human propensities. The new propensities in turn influenced subsequent selection, which in turn strengthened these propensities. Thus, human domestication gradually took place. Long before humans began to selectively breed animals, they began to culturally select themselves. As Matt Ridley says, humans are self-domesticated apes (cf. Ridley 2003, p. 348).
“… Man of his own accord mediates, regulates, and controls the material reactions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway” (Marx and Engels 1975-2004, vol. 35, p. 187, translation corrected).
As a result of millions of years of mixed selection, meanings are inscribed in nature itself, in human genes. With the emergence of culture, it begins to influence nature by creating a cultural environment (domus) within the natural environment and domesticating proto-humans to slowly transform them into the modern type of Homo sapience. “In the dialectic between nature and the socially constructed world the human organism itself is transformed. In this same dialectic man produces reality and thereby produces himself” (Berger and Luckmann 1991, p. 204).
The transmission of meanings between people, that is, learning, is based on imitation or mimesis, not on copying. Imitators do not have access to the content of the meanings they must acquire and cannot copy it. Therefore, the learning of meanings relies on active communication with other people, on the acquisition of norms through their expression. From norms, the imitators gradually arrive at the content, that is, understanding. In this way, imitators penetrate new cultural areas and learn meanings that were previously inaccessible to their understanding.