I praise the synthesis and expansion of attractor theory to explain statistical universals, but critique its failure to explain absolute universals. I agree that lullabies, hero stories, and shamanism are good candidates for primarily cultural evolutionary explanations, but argue that the larger, most universal categories they are sub-phenomena of – music, language, religion – require gene-culture coevolutionary explanations.

In this commentary, we argue that aesthetic chills provide empirical evidence for Singh’s subjective functionalism. These pleasurable and measurable somatic events mark dopaminergic-mediated validation when cultural artifacts resonate with cognitive architecture. Research demonstrates chills can be predicted, induced, and therapeutically deployed for depression. This transforms aesthetics from ornamental to functional, revealing how feeling drives cultural transmission while enabling interventions.

The concept of super-attracters downplays the impact of basic emotions upon decision-making. The complexity of emotions belies the instinctual nature of such emotional systems, which are ultimately established by genetics and evolutionary processes. Examples of super-attractants may perhaps be better framed as evolutionary adaptiveness versus vestigial/byproduct behaviors.

I contrast Singh’s subjective functionalism with structuralist-related approaches in anthropology, where “attractors” are not isolated packages of beliefs and practices but robust relationships between such packages within cultural systems. While impressive in its synthesis, Singh’s account falls short of explaining a defining feature of human culture: its holistic nature. I use shamanism as an illustrative example.

I read Singh’s stimulating proposal as a comeback to methodological individualism: social and cultural phenomena are driven by individual motivations, given by individuals’ subjective reasons for action. Singh’s version of this classic doctrine is useful when it leads him to question cultural group selection. But contrary to methodological individualism, the cognitive mechanisms shaping culture are not necessarily conscious, coherent, or causal.

Reviving Gould and Lewontin’s critique of adaptationism, Singh’s subjective selection favors truth over useful simplification. Nonetheless, while psychologically plausible, its explanatory power remains limited. Moreover, by treating evolved psychology as fixed, it neglects gene-culture coevolution. The result is a vision of cultural evolution whose expansiveness risks outpacing its scientific utility.

Singh emphasizes how individual-level processes, including motivation, shape cultural evolution. I suggest this approach can be enriched by considering cultural affordances – the goal-relevant opportunities and threats that a cultural variant might provide to an individual. This framework might be useful for explaining not only cultural universals but also nuances in variation between and within cultures.

I suggest that, first, the broad framework of subjective selection proposed by Singh is not as different from existing research in cultural evolution as is made out, and second, that an under-discussed but important cause of cross-cultural regularities (the “cultural manifold”) is payoff-biased diffusion or migration between societies.

Singh’s notion of subjective selection is ambiguous between (i) the subjective selections of individual agents, and (ii) a form of cultural selection that ranges across populations. His notion of super-attraction is also ambiguous: it spells out a target for explanation, but also suggests a hypothesis for how these phenomena should be explained.

Singh’s model accounts for cultural convergence but not moral progress. Historical expansions in moral status and the decline of cruel punishment constitute principled departures from parochial utility optimization. Empathy, reflective override, and institutional scaffolding support such breakthroughs. Moral progress therefore functions as a counter-attractor dynamic that enables systematic divergence from utility-based equilibria and requires explanatory resources beyond subjective selection alone.

Singh sees cultural convergence as people choosing traditions that seem to work well in practice. I build on this by looking at symbolic super attractors, like ancestor worship or cosmic diagrams. These can last for a long time since they fit human ways of thinking and give people a sense of deeper grounding. Unlike practical choices, which are judged by how effective they are, symbolic ones are valued for how well they make sense and hold together. Recognizing both sides gives a clearer picture of how cultures form and endure.

The field of cultural evolution has long emphasized forms of social learning where learners are “blind” to payoffs of cultural traits, while neglecting “sighted” processes like guided variation. We review new insights that could inform psychologically enriched models of social learning. These insights reveal new ways that blindness creeps into selection, even when agents appraise the payoffs of cultural traits.

Language exemplifies Singh’s super-attractor concept while testing the explanatory limits of subjective selection, which is just one of the processes of cultural evolution. Subjective selection explains many linguistic features through speakers’ instrumental goals. However, other types of processes also shape language evolution: some, related to learning and perception, for instance, will not involve intentions or conscious selection. Others involve intentionally creating and transforming linguistic constructions rather than merely selecting them from random mutations.

We are sympathetic to Singh’s argument for ascribing a central role to agency within cultural evolution. In our opinion, however, his account oversimplifies the relation between agents and their environments, treating goals merely as internal cognitive states. Work in cognitive ethnography reveals that goals emerge in interaction with, and are constrained by, physical and social features of the environment.

Singh’s framework of subjective selection compellingly links individual cognition to cultural convergence. My commentary emphasizes that subjective selection is hierarchically mediated: not all individuals have equal capacity to shape or transmit their evaluations. Hierarchies of influence, authority, and interdependence determine whose perceptions are amplified into cultural traditions. Accounting for inequality and social power clarifies how the cultural manifold reflects both shared psychology and the unequal distribution of influence within human societies.

Singh compellingly describes some psychological factors that shape selection of cultural variants, but his approach gives insufficient attention to how culture shapes psychology. We argue the subjective selection account needs to pay greater attention to the psychological nuances of goal pursuit, cultural shaping of both perceived and “actual” effectiveness, and importance of social consensus cues.

Extending Singh’s theory of cultural “super-attractors,” this commentary examines the Intensive Care Unit as a living model of the cultural manifold. In this high-acuity clinical environment, patients, families, and clinicians unconsciously reconstruct cultural super-attractors through ritual, cooperation, and shared humanitarian goals. Integrating psychiatric consultation reveals how these attractors transform unconscious adaptation into structured healing and recovery.

Singh convincingly argues that understanding culture requires understanding subjective selection. Here, I (1) suggest an extension to Singh’s cultural manifold, namely status signaling systems and (2) argue that Singh’s approach might unfold its greatest impact on the study of modern culture and economics. Indeed, subjective selection seems to readily predict numerous modern phenomena such as highly addictive digital interfaces.

A merit of the subjective selection framework is to focus on individuals’ motivations in shaping cultural trends. To gain explanatory strength, the model should be completed with a proper assessment of the role of natural selection. In contrast to some formulations in the target article, natural selection shapes not just organisms’ overall goals in “selecting” cultural materials but also the detailed mechanisms whereby they assess and produce cultural material.

We praise many aspects of this paper that bring forward previously underemphasized content. We would caution against presenting it as an alternative group-level selection. Indeed, subjective selection may serve to generate a mechanistic understanding of the underlying system upon which group selection operates. Such an approach would address the circularity in the supposition that subjective selection explains cultural patterns.