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This paper concerns how rule-following behavior might evolve in the context of a variety of Skyrms–Lewis signaling game (Lewis, Convention, 1969; Skyrms, Signals evolution, learning, & information 2010), how such rules might subsequently evolve to be used in new contexts, and how such appropriation allows for the composition of evolved rules. We will also consider how the composition of simpler rules to form more complex rules may be significantly more efficient than evolving the complex rules directly. And we will review an example of rule following by pinyon and scrub jays (Bond et al., Anim Behav 65:476–487, 2003) as an illustration of the appropriation of a rule to a new context (Barrett, Biol Theory 8(2):142–150, 2013a; Barrett, Philos Sci, 2014). The proposal here is that the composition of rules might occur in a way that is precisely analogous to such simple appropriation. Finally, we will briefly consider how any finite truth-functional operation might evolve by the sequential appropriation of simpler rules.

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-014-0421-6

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