We seem to have lost the old Thought Provoking (TM) mind expansion thread, so here’s a replacement.
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Astrology:
. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/06/i-was-an-astrologer-how-it-works-psychics
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Before you scoff, there are some interesting insights in the article that you don’t have to be a believer to appreciate. Here’s a couple of extracts that made me wonder:
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I’d understood organised religion to be something between an embarrassment and an evil. Yet as Aids did its dreadful work – this was the 1990s – I watched nuns offer compassionate care to the dying. Christian volunteers checked on derelict men with vomit down their clothes. I became uncomfortably aware that New Agers do not build hospitals or feed alcoholics – they buy self-actualisation at the cash register.
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I also learned that intelligence and education do not protect against superstition. Many customers were stockbrokers, advertising executives or politicians, dealing with issues whose outcomes couldn’t be controlled. It’s uncertainty that drives people into woo, not stupidity, so I’m not surprised millennials are into astrology. They grew up with Harry Potter and graduated into a precarious economy, making them the ideal customers.
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Some repeat customers claimed I’d made very specific predictions, of a kind I never made. It dawned on me that my readings were a co-creation – I would weave a story and, later, the customer’s memory would add new elements. I got to test this theory after a friend raved about a reading she’d had, full of astonishingly accurate predictions. She had a tape of the session, so I asked her to play it.
The clairvoyant had said none of the things my friend claimed. Not a single one. My friend’s imagination had done all the work.
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And my favourite:
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I can still make the odd forecast, though. Here’s one: the venture capital pouring into astrology apps will create a fortune telling system that works, because humans are predictable. As people follow the advice, the apps’ predictive powers will increase, creating an ever-tighter electronic leash. But they’ll be hugely popular – because if you sprinkle magic on top, you can sell people anything.
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I mean, even if there was a God, it would make more sense that he would create a being who could figure things out rather than need God to figure it all out for him.
An Islamic interpretation I read said that God creted man imperfectly so that man would hunger for the connection with God.
I like the idea of God as a perfected self. God is the archetype of man, but man being everything they wished to be, without the flaws. After all, when we imagine God, we imagine him/her as kind of human, able to understand human concerns, communicate with us, etc. We don’t imagine God as a kind of queen bee who just wants you to gather honey and reproduce and die for the colony, or as an omniscient amoeba.
In Hinduism, the self or atman is literally what God is. Buddhism went against that by basing itself on an-atman, or non-self.
(Cue Nietzsche, Zizek etc coming in saying Buddhism is nihilistic)
In Hinduism, the self or atman is literally what God is. Buddhism went against that by basing itself on an-atman, or non-self.
Similar to some Christian developments (like in the Gospel of Judas) where the creator God was actually a fallen deity – the demiurge – and all material existence was a corruption of a pure unified non-existence.
It wasn’t unusual for the Roman and gentile converts to Christianity to read the Hebrew Bible and come away with the impression that that God was essentially Darkseid and Jesus was from an entirely different, more benevolent deity.
It wasn’t unusual for the Roman and gentile converts to Christianity to read the Hebrew Bible and come away with the impression that that God was essentially Darkseid and Jesus was from an entirely different, more benevolent deity.
I could be a Christian if Christianity was based on the gospels and ditched the rest of the New testament and most or all of the Old Testament stuff.
In Hinduism, the self or atman is literally what God is. Buddhism went against that by basing itself on an-atman, or non-self.
Similar to some Christian developments (like in the Gospel of Judas) where the creator God was actually a fallen deity – the demiurge – and all material existence was a corruption of a pure unified non-existence.
It wasn’t unusual for the Roman and gentile converts to Christianity to read the Hebrew Bible and come away with the impression that that God was essentially Darkseid and Jesus was from an entirely different, more benevolent deity.
Here’s a good video exploring Marcion, one of the most well-known theologian to follow such a reading of Paul:
The same channel has videos on Gnosticism and the Gospel of Judas, that might be relevant. His video on Judas is interesting, as he presents an alternate interpretation: The authors didn’t see Judas as good, but as a self-defeating apostle of Satan, and that Jesus’ positive interactions with him are really like Jesus’ interactions with Satan himself in Matthew, only that Jesus was more patient, as the authors believed Jesus was manipulating the demonic Judas into helping him.
I would say that religion is OK here so long as the poster is explanatory not preachy or insulting…
I guess when I asked about other dimensions and if life exists there…
Anyway, life as we know it is organic with a circulatory system etc.
It is hard to picture a being of pure energy and thought, inorganic.
Anyway, life as we know it is organic with a circulatory system etc. It is hard to picture a being of pure energy and thought, inorganic.
Essentially, I think we’d have to start with a complete understanding of the environment first and then consider what sort of complex chemical reactions would be possible. There is no complete understanding of how life on earth developed yet, so environments that aren’t earth would be infinitely more difficult to think of other kinds of life and other possibilities that aren’t chemically alive. Especially in multiple dimensions. Imagine a being whose every atom essentially contained as much information as an entire universe. The sheer amount of complexity though would be a question.
As far as life as we know it, chemistry is probably irrelevant except that conditions here support a certain level of complex material activity that is repeatable and adaptable to changes in the environment. Any environment that could support similar complexity no matter the base materials could support a kind of life completely different from our own. Could photons in certain conditions behave like DNA? Could there be a lifeform based on super-heavy elements much larger than those we see on the periodic table? Maybe, but it would be hard to predict based on the environment that we’re familiar with.
Anyway, life as we know it is organic with a circulatory system etc. It is hard to picture a being of pure energy and thought, inorganic.
Essentially, I think we’d have to start with a complete understanding of the environment first and then consider what sort of complex chemical reactions would be possible. There is no complete understanding of how life on earth developed yet, so environments that aren’t earth would be infinitely more difficult to think of other kinds of life and other possibilities that aren’t chemically alive. Especially in multiple dimensions. Imagine a being whose every atom essentially contained as much information as an entire universe. The sheer amount of complexity though would be a question.
As far as life as we know it, chemistry is probably irrelevant except that conditions here support a certain level of complex material activity that is repeatable and adaptable to changes in the environment. Any environment that could support similar complexity no matter the base materials could support a kind of life completely different from our own. Could photons in certain conditions behave like DNA? Could there be a lifeform based on super-heavy elements much larger than those we see on the periodic table? Maybe, but it would be hard to predict based on the environment that we’re familiar with.
Then you have to consider that the physics in other universes and dimensions could be radically different so “intelligence” may not be what we recognize and vice versa.
Many years ago, I remember reading about a theoretical “tachyon Universe”, where the speed of light is the slowest speed you could go. IIRC, going “sublight speed” meant ceasing to exist.
What’s a little more interesting in the philosophy of extraterrestrial life would be the inability to really communicate even if they were very similar. For example, imagine an intelligent race where they had so many offspring that it was considered moral to eat as many of your children as you could. That their version of McDonald’s served literal “baby back” ribs every birthing season. It was such a part of their culture that it is insulting not to offer an assortment of your children to a guest for dinner.
I remember reading a story about a guy who claimed to have interacted with aliens on an air force base. He said that these aliens found our relationship with other animals to be very strange. They were a race of plant eaters as were most of the races that they had encountered. They said that it was normal for intelligent species to immediately eradicate all other animals on the planet since they were either dangerous carnivores or competitive herbivores. Humans were the only species they had met that cared about other animals, like the whales, even though there was no obvious interest in saving or preserving them.
I thought that was an interesting idea for a story. That alien races that put their survival above all else would naturally progress the farthest but lose the ability to see things from an alien point of view.
Actually, there have been many cases of UFO’s over large cities and airports. It’s just that the vast majority of them are usually in areas close to military testing sights. Mainly because the best explanation of UFO’s is that 99% of them are mistaken. The person is seeing something that looks like a flying craft but isn’t. The rest are hoaxes and most of the ones that get written about are test vehicles that the military does not want revealed. So there is a disinformation campaign to promote the idea that they are alien craft and UFOologists are more than willing to believe and propagate that. Unfortunately, this leads many people into mental illness and to a great extent military intelligence programs will actually end up exacerbating their decline. I’ve known several people actively involved in the UFO community over the years – one was a NASA engineer – and it uniformly led to a paranoid mental breakdown.
I’ve personally seen a very specific kind of UFO several times in broad daylight fly over Pittsburgh and later over Los Angeles. These white spherical craft that I’m fairly certain are some kind of experimental drone. However, practically the only reason I saw them was that I occasionally look up. Most people don’t look up during the day. Most people don’t look up when they are at home.
One time I pointed out one of these spheres passing overhead to a friend while we were having coffee over lunch. Broad daylight, a white sphere maybe six feet in diameter passing overhead in a straight line about six hundred feet up over Koreatown – a very crowded LA neighborhood – and we were the only two people in sight who were looking at it. And he wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t pointed it out. I don’t think he would have really noticed it even if he had looked at it unless I made a point of asking “what do you think that is?”
It kinda freaked him out. A few minutes later, he finished his coffee and said we should leave. I don’t know what it was – so it is an unidentified flying object – but I’m not worried it’s the precursor to an alien invasion. I’ve been seeing them since the 90’s so I’m just waiting until I can find one for sell on Amazon once whoever’s using it has invented something better.
1 Cor 15:14-17 (emphasis mine): And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain;….
The resurrection shouldn’t be very important to Christian faith. It’s really just a footnote or epilogue to the crucifixion, which is the only bit that matters.<u></u>
Christ died for our sins, he didn’t resurrect for them. It shouldn’t really matter to Christian faith what happened to him after he died, as long as he did die, and if you believe that then your faith isn’t in vain.
Though if you’re preaching that he was raised and he really wasn’t, then yeah that’s obviously false witness.
Years ago, a physicists who also liked sci fi pretty much
deconstructed and tore down space travel on TV and the movies
and what it would really take for a UFO to get here etc…
Also if you think downloading a file is slow, think about beaming
every atom of a person down to a planet and back again.
Mathematical odds are interesting I think. We casually say things like “Well I think there is a 70 % chance it will rain tomorrow.” But that’s kind of weird. It either will rain or it won’t. So at this moment there is either a 0 % chance it will rain tomorrow or there is a 100 % chance of rain. The 70 % chance interjection is kind of a subjective, meaning how certain are we on a scale of 0 to 100. If the universe is entirely deterministic, chance doesn’t really exist. Everything that happens had a 100 % chance of happening prior to it happening.
It means there is a 70% CHANCE that it will rain at some point – maybe a 10 second sprinkle, maybe a four hour downpour – or maybe you’ll get lucky and it won’t rain at all. After all, if there’s a 70% chance of rain, that means there’s a 30% chance of no rain!
Mathematical odds are interesting I think. We casually say things like “Well I think there is a 70 % chance it will rain tomorrow.” But that’s kind of weird. It either will rain or it won’t. So at this moment there is either a 0 % chance it will rain tomorrow or there is a 100 % chance of rain. The 70 % chance interjection is kind of a subjective, meaning how certain are we on a scale of 0 to 100. If the universe is entirely deterministic, chance doesn’t really exist. Everything that happens had a 100 % chance of happening prior to it happening.
Well yes, probabilities are all about what we don’t know, really. If we had complete knowledge we would be able to predict everything with 100% success and probability as a concept wouldn’t exist.
So there is a disinformation campaign to promote the idea that they are alien craft and UFOologists are more than willing to believe and propagate that. Unfortunately, this leads many people into mental illness
Trying to make sense of the last two seasons of X-files does that too.
Anyway, life as we know it is organic with a circulatory system etc. It is hard to picture a being of pure energy and thought, inorganic.
Essentially, I think we’d have to start with a complete understanding of the environment first and then consider what sort of complex chemical reactions would be possible. There is no complete understanding of how life on earth developed yet, so environments that aren’t earth would be infinitely more difficult to think of other kinds of life and other possibilities that aren’t chemically alive. Especially in multiple dimensions. Imagine a being whose every atom essentially contained as much information as an entire universe. The sheer amount of complexity though would be a question.
As far as life as we know it, chemistry is probably irrelevant except that conditions here support a certain level of complex material activity that is repeatable and adaptable to changes in the environment. Any environment that could support similar complexity no matter the base materials could support a kind of life completely different from our own. Could photons in certain conditions behave like DNA? Could there be a lifeform based on super-heavy elements much larger than those we see on the periodic table? Maybe, but it would be hard to predict based on the environment that we’re familiar with.
We also have kind of an antropocentric, or anyways zoocentric, view of what “beings” entail. Can a stone or a gust of wind or a quasar not be described as “being”? What must a being be in order for it to be a being?
We also have kind of an antropocentric, or anyways zoocentric, view of what “beings” entail. Can a stone or a gust of wind or a quasar not be described as “being”? What must a being be in order for it to be a being?
It’s a philosophical question and the sort of thing that Wittgenstein wondered about as well.
For example, you can say that your hands are “you” but the computer you’re using is not “you.” However, fundamentally, why is that? You use both of them, but the computer is an extension of you when you are using it. However, are your hands an extension of something, too? As you drill back, the defining line of what is you and not you becomes vague. Are the words that pop into your head “you”? If so, then where do those words come from? What happens when you can’t think of a word – when it’s on “the tip of your tongue”? Then when it pops into your head, where did it pop from? If you are not the one putting the words into your head then who is?
That extensive connectivity between self, no self and the world has confounded philosophical understanding, but – as Wittgenstein pointed out – it’s mainly a defect of language. Language is intended to be used within a finite context so it can’t be extended to describe itself. It’s like asking what “means” means. You’d have to know what it means to ask what it means, but it is not easy to describe that without ending in nonsense.
Like language itself for example. A language is made up of words or symbols, but symbols only exist in the context of the language. So, how could the first word have ever been spoken if the language didn’t exist? How could language ever exist with the words, or symbols, already there?
So, how could the first word have ever been spoken if the language didn’t exist?
One theory is that the first words were onomatopoetic, so that their meaning could be understood as they sounded like the things they refered to. It’s kind of obvious (it’s what happens in every scene in a movie in which someone is trying to explain something to somebody who doesn’t talk their language), but it does make sense, especially as cave art kinda shows the same process – it proves a certain point at which symbolic thinking emerged, a point where you can clearly see that these people understood that this drawing refered to something that was not itself but rather a thing that existed outside of the cave.
I love that the Bow-Wow theory is by a philosopher called Herder. He couldn’t have called it anything else.
Well, it wasn’t actually him who called it that; another linguist, Friedrich Müller did, and he was using the name to make fun of it.
(The thing that doesn’t work in Herder’s theory – which is a lot of fun to read though – isn’t the idea that this might be how language started in the very beginning, but that many things, in his view, still sound like what they are.)
On the other hand, Herde was very font of using sheep as an example for the whole process.
Well, it wasn’t actually him who called it that; another linguist, Friedrich Müller did, and he was using the name to make fun of it. (The thing that doesn’t work in Herder’s theory – which is a lot of fun to read though – isn’t the idea that this might be how language started in the very beginning, but that many things, in his view, still sound like what they are.) On the other hand, Herde was very font of using sheep as an example for the whole process.
Also, it’s essentially nonsense to think of it that way. To even ask the question, which came first language or words is bourn out of a misconception inherent to the limitation of languages in the first place. Obviously, the question has no answer since language doesn’t work that way – it is not something that was assembled over time. Even if the first words were sounds like what the word referred to, it still implies there is a shared language because – as we all know – how would you know the sound you make is the same as what the person you’re saying it to thinks it sounds like? There is hardly any culture in the world where the sound a chicken makes is the same.
Language happens like any complex natural event and you can see it in children as they suddenly start talking. Especially in children as even young kids that don’t speak the same language seem to understand each other when they play together.
However, because language itself is about structure, order and sequences in time, it feels like it must have been invented, and because it is so tied up in the way people think, it is hard to see it as a natural process rather than a created thing.
However, because language itself is about structure, order and sequences in time, it feels like it must have been invented, and because it is so tied up in the way people think, it is hard to see it as a natural process rather than a created thing.
Hard to see, yeah, but like the chicken and the egg or the metal tongs thing if you add enough time, it makes more sense. The children example is very true, though, and it took a while for us to realise that it’s really, really hard to explain how children learn to speak – Chomsky demonstrates that it would actually be quite impossible to learn a language at that age with just the general logical and intellectual capacities of our minds, and he theorised that must have a mechamism already in place in our brains that allows us to learn languages (which would also mean that there would have to be some kind of Universal Grammar common to all languages). His Language Acquisition Device is still a bit of a black box though.
Hard to see, yeah, but like the chicken and the egg or the metal tongs thing if you add enough time, it makes more sense. The children example is very true, though, and it took a while for us to realise that it’s really, really hard to explain how children learn to speak – Chomsky demonstrates that it would actually be quite impossible to learn a language at that age with just the general logical and intellectual capacities of our minds, and he theorised that must have a mechamism already in place in our brains that allows us to learn languages (which would also mean that there would have to be some kind of Universal Grammar common to all languages). His Language Acquisition Device is still a bit of a black box though.
It seems likely that it is always going to be impossible to explain language with language due to the limitations of context. A language can develop and be taught, but there is no reason to believe that language itself is something human beings learned anymore than human beings learned how to walk.
If I asked what came first, walking or the first step, you’d immediately see that the question was nonsense. Human beings could naturally walk and there is no reason to believe that they couldn’t naturally start talking and communicating verbally and non-verbally in much the same way they do today. Since we consider language to be complex and have seen languages develop over time, though, the questions themselves such as “which came first, a word or a language?” or “how did human beings learn to speak?” set up false premises based on unjustified assumptions that language is not a natural process in human beings but something they would have to learn. A language like English or German is something that we learn, but language itself is something we were born to do. There is no reason to believe that human beings had to invent language itself any more than they would have had to invent walking on two legs.
String theory is a purported theory of everything that physicists hope will one day explain … everything.
All the forces, all the particles, all the constants, all the things under a single theoretical roof, where everything that we see is the result of tiny, vibrating strings. Theorists have been working on the idea since the 1960s, and one of the first things they realized is that for the theory to work, there have to be more dimensions than the four we’re used to.
But that idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
Dimensional disaster
In string theory, little loops of vibrating stringiness (in the theory, they are the fundamental object of reality) manifest as the different particles (electrons, quarks, neutrinos, etc.) and as the force-carriers of nature (photons, gluons, gravitons, etc.). The way they do this is through their vibrations. Each string is so tiny that it appears to us as nothing more than a point-like particle, but each string can vibrate with different modes, the same way you can get different notes out of a guitar string.
Each vibration mode is thought to relate to a different kind of particle. So all the strings vibrating one way look like electrons, all the strings vibrating another way look like photons, and so on. What we see as particle collisions are, in the string theory view, a bunch of strings merging together and splitting apart.
But for the math to work, there have to be more than four dimensions in our universe. This is because our usual space-time doesn’t give the strings enough “room” to vibrate in all the ways they need to in order to fully express themselves as all the varieties of particles in the world. They’re just too constrained.
In other words, the strings don’t just wiggle, they wiggle hyperdimensionally.
Current versions of string theory require 10 dimensions total, while an even more hypothetical über-string theory known as M-theory requires 11. But when we look around the universe, we only ever see the usual three spatial dimensions plus the dimension of time. We’re pretty sure that if the universe had more than four dimensions, we would’ve noticed by now.
How can the string theory’s requirement for extra dimensions possibly be reconciled with our everyday experiences in the universe?
Curled up and compact
Thankfully, string theorists were able to point to a historical antecedent for this seemingly radical notion.
Back in 1919, shortly after Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity, the mathematician and physicist Theodor Kaluza was playing around with the equations, just for fun. And he found something especially interesting when he added a fifth dimension to the equations — nothing happened. The equations of relativity don’t really care about the number of dimensions; it’s something you have to add in to make the theory applicable to our universe.
But then Kaluza added a special twist to that fifth dimension, making it wrap around itself in what he called the “cylinder condition.” This requirement made something new pop out: Kaluza recovered the usual equations of general relativity in the usual four dimensions, plus a new equation that replicated the expressions of electromagnetism.
It looked like adding dimensions could potentially unify physics.
In retrospect, this was a bit of a red herring.
Still, a couple of decades later another physicist, Oskar Klein, tried to give Kaluza’s idea an interpretation in terms of quantum mechanics. He found that if this fifth dimension existed and was responsible in some way for electromagnetism, that dimension had to be scrunched down, wrapping back around itself (just like in Kaluza’s original idea), but way smaller, down to a bare 10^-35 meters.
The many manifolds of string theory
If an extra dimension (or dimensions) is really that small, we wouldn’t have noticed by now. It’s so small that we couldn’t possibly hope to directly probe it with our high-energy experiments. And if those dimensions are wrapped up on themselves, then every time you move around in four-dimensional space, you’re really circumnavigating those extra dimensions billions upon billions of times.
And those are the dimensions where the strings of string theory live.
With further mathematical insight, it was found that the extra six spatial dimensions needed in string theory have to be wrapped up in a particular set of configurations, known as Calabi-Yao manifolds after two prominent physicists. But there isn’t one unique manifold that’s allowed by sting theory.
There’s around 10^200,000.
It turns out that when you need six dimensions to curl up on themselves, and give them almost any possible way to do it, it … adds up.
That’s a lot of different ways to wrap those extra dimensions in on themselves. And each possible configuration will affect the ways the strings inside them vibrate. Since the ways that strings vibrate determine how they behave up here in the macroscopic world, each choice of manifold leads to a distinct universe with its own set of physics.
So only one manifold can give rise to the world as we experience it. But which one?
Unfortunately, string theory can’t give us an answer, at least not yet. The trouble is that string theory isn’t done — we only have various approximation methods that we hope get close to the real thing, but right now we have no idea how right we are. So we have no mathematical technology for following the chain, from specific manifold to specific string vibration to the physics of the universe.
The response from string theorists is something called the Landscape, a multiverse of all possible universes predicted by the various manifolds, with our universe as just one point among many.
And that’s where string theory sits today, somewhere on the Landscape.
If I asked what came first, walking or the first step, you’d immediately see that the question was nonsense. Human beings could naturally walk and there is no reason to believe that they couldn’t naturally start talking and communicating verbally and non-verbally in much the same way they do today.
Another interesting question is who did the first human to develop speech talk with.
Another interesting question is who did the first human to develop speech talk with.
Exactly, when you ask questions in this way, the irrational nature of the question becomes obvious. It’s like asking who was the first human to learn to have sex and how did he or she have sex if no one else knew how? Obviously, it’s a natural organic behavior because there would be no humans otherwise.
Because of the way we look at language today, we think it is something that has to be learned rather than an inherent element of human biology and psychology. Due to the development of specific languages, it feels like talking would have to have been developed over time when there is really no reason to assume that groups of human beings wouldn’t naturally be able to talk to each other immediately without having to have to develop a codified language first.
Literacy, on the other hand, is more a developed, learned and passed on ability – or technology – that emerged from the natural ability of language. However, that creates the sense that speaking must be passed on in the same way.
Because of the way we look at language today, we think it is something that has to be learned rather than an inherent element of human biology and psychology. Due to the development of specific languages, it feels like talking would have to have been developed over time when there is really no reason to assume that groups of human beings wouldn’t naturally be able to talk to each other immediately without having to have to develop a codified language first.
Well, you know, we actually don’t think that and we do think it’s an inherent element of human biology and psychology if we have read any of the work done on language acquisition and language emergence, or generative grammar, done linguists.
But about the groups of human beings – that’s one of the more interesting aspects, that there are cases in which small, isolated groups have created their own language under difficult conditions. The most impressive recent example of this is a group of deaf children in Nicaragua developping their own sign language unnoticed by the teachers who were trying to teach them spanish sign language.
Well, you know, we actually don’t think that and we do think it’s an inherent element of human biology and psychology if we have read any of the work done on language acquisition and language emergence, or generative grammar, done linguists.
I find there is a gap here in the perceptions of people who are raised monoglot. Especially in the UK and US when a second language is taught as a school subject mainly in their teens (and rarely retained) it is seen more as an academic thing that needs a lot of structured work.
I see this in Wales where every single piece of evidence shows that those raised bilingually get better results in a 3rd modern language at school yet it is constant refrain from those who can’t that it prevents the learning of more ‘useful’ languages. It’s because they see it as an extra ‘subject’ that takes up time instead of something learnt almost by osmosis when young.
In Penang where I live the majority can speak fluent Hokkien even though it doesn’t exist as an academic subject.
I do know that’s not exactly what we’re discussing here with the very origins of language but I think it carries over in attitudes about how technically a language is learned rather than naturally.
Well, you know, we actually don’t think that and we do think it’s an inherent element of human biology and psychology if we have read any of the work done on language acquisition and language emergence, or generative grammar, done linguists.
However, that isn’t directly my point, and it is not essentially a question of linguistics. Essentially, it’s how questions like “who spoke the first word?” or “how did the first humans learn to speak” or even “how did the first language develop?” often have nonsense assumptions to them. It suggests that there is an assumption there must’ve been a developmental period between groups of human who did not speak and then gradually developed speech when that is an assumption in the question and there is no reason not to believe first humans – and related now extinct hominid species – were already speaking as soon as they emerged as organisms on the world. Even theorizing that the words would have to sound like the actual things they referred to has many unfounded assumptions inherent to the suggestion.
But more to the point, the question like “how did the first person learn to speak and to whom did they speak?” sounds like it should have an answer when really it is essentially nonsense and our language allows these sorts of questions to use language to distort our thinking. Plato’s Republic for example asks “what is justice?” and goes on to expand upon that for page after page until it creates this particularly harrowing view of a perfect society. However, the initial question “what is justice?” has an unfounded assumption that justice is a thing like water or trees that one can isolate and examine when really it only exists in specific contexts and operates only to some very vague and often arbitrary rules. Again, it’s like taking a chess piece off the board and asking, “what is knight?” If instead of saying it is a game piece that only means something when it is on the board during play, the asker then goes on to expound upon “knightness” and its deeper significance, you’d immediately notice they are full of crap.
However, when Plato has Socrates ask what is justice in The Republic, no one slaps him and tells him to get his head out his ass. The entire socratic method often encourages nonsense in this way. Rather than the question revealing the defects in the thinking, it often promotes more defects with some sort of assumption than every question deserves or has a right answer.
It suggests that there is an assumption there must’ve been a developmental period between groups of human who did not speak and then gradually developed speech when that is an assumption in the question and there is no reason not to believe first humans – and related now extinct hominid species – were already speaking as soon as they emerged as organisms on the world.
Now you are yourself using the idea of “first humans” and you make it sound like this “emerging into the world” is an instantenuous moment. But the process of becoming what we now see as human, and parallel to that of developing language, probably took many thousands of years. You can pick a point where language had developed to something that we would recognise as such and then say “These are the first humans!” and “Look, they are already speaking as soon as they are emerging as organisms on the world!” but it’s a random moment you’re picking in a process that lasted thousands of years. In evolution, everything is gradual change.
As for the time frame, there probably will more evidence as genetic decoding progresses. With FOXP2, they’ve already found one gene that is important to how our language functions (and which is about 200.000 years old); they’ll figure out more of this stuff in the coming years.
Even theorizing that the words would have to sound like the actual things they referred to has many unfounded assumptions inherent to the suggestion.
Which is one of the reasons why the bow-wow theory was already made fun of and hotly discussed in the 19th century.
Now you are yourself using the idea of “first humans” and you make it sound like this “emerging into the world” is an instantenuous moment. But the process of becoming what we now see as human, and parallel to that of developing language, probably took many thousands of years. You can pick a point where language had developed to something that we would recognise as such and then say “These are the first humans!” and “Look, they are already speaking as soon as they are emerging as organisms on the world!” but it’s a random moment you’re picking in a process that lasted thousands of years. In evolution, everything is gradual change.
My point more is that there is no reason to believe that any group of animals that had our physiology or any physiology similar to ours could not or did not use their voices to express their thoughts and feelings, share information and tell stories. That any human at any point in history could use their voices to say things like “I’m hungry,” “there’s a lion over there” or “I love you” and that happened in a single lifespan. Since we’re physically the same species for millions of years, it would be an assumption to think that any generation could not speak or understand their fellows’ speech. You’d have to prove that they couldn’t or you’re making an assumption that speech was not always a part of the species.
Plato’s Republic for example asks “what is justice?” and goes on to expand upon that for page after page until it creates this particularly harrowing view of a perfect society. However, the initial question “what is justice?” has an unfounded assumption that justice is a thing like water or trees that one can isolate and examine when really it only exists in specific contexts and operates only to some very vague and often arbitrary rules.
Buddhism has a term for this named “prapancha” , elaboration of concepts. It describes the tendency to heap abstraction upon abstraction ultimately leading to delusion. Freedom from concepts is a core tenet from early Buddhism which unfortunately gets lost in later iterations. Some forms of Buddhism are full of prapancha.
Since we’re physically the same species for millions of years, it would be an assumption to think that any generation could not speak or understand their fellows’ speech.
But that is not an assumption anyone is making. The assumption is that speech developed in tiny, tiny steps over thousands of generations. Not that there would be a leap from one generation to another.
You’d have to prove that they couldn’t or you’re making an assumption that speech was not always a part of the species.
Well, it’s a question of how you define the species, of course. There was a time before there were humans, and since they didn’t suddenly jump into existence, there must have been a time when there were proto-sapiens quite similar to us but without certain traits, maybe most importantly the ability to speak. If you decide to define homo sapiens by out ability to speak, your argument would be automatically true. If not, if you settle on another, earlier trait, it would be automatically incorrect. But it’s really kind of a moot chicken-and-egg point, as there is no single moment you would be able to point to, anyway.
But that is not an assumption anyone is making. The assumption is that speech developed in tiny, tiny steps over thousands of generations. Not that there would be a leap from one generation to another.
Exactly my point. It is an assumption. It’s not founded in anything we could discover since there is no record AND it actually ignores common current experience of the many ways we use our physical voices to communicate.
Obviously, you can speak without language – we do it all the time today. Actually, the confusion comes in between speech and language. Neither is necessary for the other to exist. In tight knit groups, such as small family units, unstructured vocalizations convey complex emotion, tell stories and provide detailed information even without any codified regularity to speech because these groups are so distinctly intimate with each other’s lives. There is no reason to assume that before there were any languages or structured systems of vocal communication that humans weren’t already improvising sounds with their voices that others in their group could understand as clearly as they intended. Storytelling – even joke telling – could have preceded any recognizable language itself. Of course, I’d assume that pantomime clearly accompanied the use of the voice, but the idea that you can’t speak to each other without a language to speak is an assumption rising from the way language makes us think.
There was a time before there were humans, and since they didn’t suddenly jump into existence, there must have been a time when there were proto-sapiens quite similar to us but without certain traits, maybe most importantly the ability to speak. If you decide to define homo sapiens by out ability to speak, your argument would be automatically true
I’m not saying that the ability to speak is what defines a human animal, but that any animal with our physiology is human or hominid and since we have the ability to speak, then it is possible humans have always been speaking even without a language to speak. By speaking, I mean conveying complex information, emotion or sharing experience with their voices that were correctly understood by others in their group. We don’t need a language to do that, so why would they.
Again, look at walking. A big trait of human beings – especially homo sapiens – is walking on two legs. Do you think it took generations before the human animals that could run actually learned how to run? That they did that in gradual steps? It’s possible that the first animal that could run did run – that once the physical ability evolved in the organism, it was expressed as behavior in the animal. Again, that once an animal has the physiological ability, it uses it immediately. Speech is a physical ability – the urge to use the voice to convey information – so its use could happen as soon as the body could use it like anything else the body could do.
Same with speaking. There is no reason to assume that the very first groups of humans with the physical ability to speak did not immediately start vocalizing to express themselves. In fact, there is a lot of reason to assume they did just looking at how children develop speech today. From that, you can see how languages developed to codify speech for larger groups where different factions would not be as deeply intimate as family units so they couldn’t rely on familiarity for comprehension.
Obviously, you can speak without language – we do it all the time today. Actually, the confusion comes in between speech and language. Neither is necessary for the other to exist. In tight knit groups, such as small family units, unstructured vocalizations convey complex emotion, tell stories and provide detailed information even without any codified regularity to speech because these groups are so distinctly intimate with each other’s lives.
You are making the assumption that what you are describing there is not language. I wonder how you would arrive at that.
There is no reason to assume that the very first groups of humans with the physical ability to speak did not immediately start vocalizing to express themselves.
And you are again making the assumption that there was something like a “first group of humans”. Which is unlikely to be the case.
You are making the assumption that what you are describing there is not language. I wonder how you would arrive at that.
I’d say I’m not assuming that speaking – using the voice to communicate – is the same as language – or speaking using a language -or that the voice requires language to communicate. I’m demonstrating that speaking does not need language to convey meaning to others. Language is one way to use the voice to communicate – and it is a very effective way, but it is not the only way nor does it seem likely that it would be how the voice was always used to communicate.
Language would be the codified and regularized sounds repeated to convey the same meaning across members of a group. Essentially, a language is something that can be learned by someone who doesn’t speak it.
However, a family unit that spent all its time together could use various vocalizations to communicate a great deal of detailed information with no regularity to it – with nothing that could be learned outside the group – because of their familiarity with each other. They would not need to use the same sounds or follow any regular rules when using them because they shared such a close existence. Using the voice to communicate feeling or information is speaking, but it doesn’t need a language to do it especially if you’re speaking to someone who you spend all your time with every day.
We think speaking and language are inherently connected, but that is a result of the fact that we use language to speak. However, we also are constantly reminded that we can communicate very deeply with each other – like if you’re in a jazz band or playing a basketball game – without using language at all and just using vocal sound.
And you are again making the assumption that there was something like a “first group of humans”. Which is unlikely to be the case.
How so? Just as with running, there had to be animals that were born with the physiological ability to do. There is no reason to assume that animal had to learn how to run before it ran or that it would take generations before animals that could run would run.
There had to be animals that were born with the ability to speak, so there is no reason to assume they needed to develop a language before they started using their voices to communicate. In fact, it seems much more reasonable that animals with voices are also born with the urge to use them – as we see with children – and that language developed from that urge many generations later when it became necessary to codify communication conventions for larger and more diverse social groups.
It is an interesting question, though when it comes to how we perceive things.
For a comparison, how many people have heard or used the terms “Lovecraftian” or “Kafka-esque?” to describe something from a work of fiction to an actual event?
So, what is that exactly? In visual arts, we can say things like John Buscema’s early Marvel work was very Kirby-esque, and when we look at the art in a comic book, often we can tell who the artist is without having to read it in the credits.
So, what exactly is the style as far as a thing we can recognize? It’s not a physical thing in the drawing even though the drawing is a physical thing.
“Style” is something we know exists because we can certainly recognize it in art, music, fiction, but also not something that exists as a thing in itself.
In Martial Arts, “chi” is very similar as something that we can feel or perceive in the performance of physical actions, but not something that you could measure or isolate. When you move the “chi” through your body in Wing Chun or Tai Chi, it is certainly something that you sense, but it can’t really be separated from the activity itself.
Language would be the codified and regularized sounds repeated to convey the same meaning across members of a group. Essentially, a language is something that can be learned by someone who doesn’t speak it.
Okay, let’s go with that. Although I do take issue with the “sounds” part – remember that there is sign language, too. And tacticle languages, as well. Language doesn’t necessarily need the voice.
However, a family unit that spent all its time together could use various vocalizations to communicate a great deal of detailed information with no regularity to it – with nothing that could be learned outside the group – because of their familiarity with each other.
I do not think this is true. The communication would still work because of the regularity; the familiarity allows you to interpret the repetition of certain patterns. If the communicative sounds/gestures would be completely different every time, familiarity would not help in interpreting it.
However.
The things you describe really do not have to be human language; I think your definition that you give above would also allow for animal communication. Codified communication of feelings etc. does exist in the animal world, on many different levels. It really would be strange if humans at any point were not able to do something that every animal can.
Human language is a bit different from that; I won’t try to deliver a definition of language here (that’s another whole can of worms), but I’d basically go with de Saussure and say that the linguistic sign has to relate to a particular meaning.
I also think you have a somewhat strange definition of “speaking”. Apparently, you refer to speaking as any kind of communicative sound, whereas speaking is usually understood to be the performance of language. You can easily say that we communicate all the time without language, that is not a controversial statement at all. And we do it with our voices, with our bodies, with looks, with sounds, with glances. It’s only your calling the vocal part of that “speaking” that makes it seem unusual when it really isn’t.
How so? Just as with running, there had to be animals that were born with the physiological ability to do. There is no reason to assume that animal had to learn how to run before it ran or that it would take generations before animals that could run would run.
There is actually every reason to assume that. Let’s go with walking first as an example, though, instead of running. The first animals that went from the sea to the land didn’t suddenly have fully-formed legs so they could, a-ha!, jump agilely onto the beach. The legs developed slowly, in many, many generations. Evolution is not a process that happens very quickly. You can’t learn to run without legs. Can’t have legs without needing to run. One thing influences the other. Slow process of, hey, this thing that happened to mutate means I can walk a tiny bit better. More walking. Walking is good, so survival and passing on of the tiny trait. Another thing mutates. And so on. There is no “I can run, but I haven’t learned how to do it.” Again, nobody ever assumed that. You do it a little bit. Then, there is a mutation in the body that allows you to do a little more of it, so that develops, too, because it’s a survival trait. And because you are doing it a little more, when there is another mutation that allows you to do even more of it, that is another advantage and gets passed on. And so on. It’s an excrutiatingly slow process in which the performance and the physical ability to perform develop co-dependently. This goes for language and the development of our brinas and language organs, too.
Evolution is slow, but that is the development of a physiological ability. However, once the ability is developed, organisms use it right away. Watch a colt after it is born. Within a few hours, it is running. It isn’t taught how to do that. You wouldn’t say that an animal that did not have the physiological ability to speak and use language like us was a homo sapiens, would you? Certainly, that physiological ability took time to evolve, but once it did, there is no reason to assume that it would have taken generations to develop into language or that even using language took generations to develop. Babies start using their voices to communicate their experience – good or bad – right away. Who taught a baby to cry when it’s hungry?
It goes back to a question from media studies class back in the 90’s. When peeling an orange, what is the fundamental difference between fingernails and a knife? It’s the relationship between physical ability and technology. You wouldn’t say that it took generations for people to figure out how to use their fingernails to peel an orange. Nor would you say that that is “proto-knife” behavior. It misses an important distinction between technology and the body. The knife is technology – all technology is meant to extend and replace some physical function of the body. A knife can do what fingernails do, but much better. A wheel replaces what the legs are meant to do. A gun extends what the fists do, but with much greater lethality. A telescope extends the lenses of our eyes.
Language is to speech (verbal and non-verbal) what a knife is to our fingernails. Certainly other animals use sound to communicate – birdsong obviously is some of the most complicated that we know about but also elephants, whales and dolphins have extremely complex ways to use sound compared to other animals. It’s no great stretch to believe that we were using our voices basically singing to each other before language was discovered, and that that sound was likely much more complicated as it expressed a much more complex individual and social experience.
However, just as the ability to conceive of, sharpen and hold a blade is a necessary physical prerequisite to invent a knife, the discovery of language could have been an immediate and rapid development as a technology because the physiological basics were in place. We’ve gone from vacuum tube radio sets to smartphones in a single generation. There is no reason to believe that the discovery of language wasn’t immediate and developed rapidly in much the same way.
At the same time, the fact that we use language constantly to communicate makes it hard to imagine what sort of people there were who would speak, or sing, to each other without a language. It’s like when I was growing up, I knew several people who had never learned to read. They saw the world in a way that I never could. They also had impressive memories and were able to tell stories like no one else. Once a technology emerges, it tends to also weaken and limit the physical ability it replaced. Before there were knives, everyone had strong fingernails because it was a necessity. Knives, though, allowed people to do things they could never do with just their nails, but they didn’t need strong nails anymore.
Before there was language, maybe everyone had a singing voice like Freddie Mercury’s because they needed the range to really express themselves. And maybe more importantly, they also had an ability to really listen that we have completely lost.
I’ve been trying to keep track of this discussion and it’s an interesting one (I really enjoy reading whatever you write, Johnny) but I’m not following. What is the base argument, where did this discussion start? Are you assuming (somehow) that humans are the only species with language. Because that’s certainly not the case, using your earlier definition of language. Parrots have words, even names, that they teach (and name) their young ones with. And parrots are, well… dinosaurs. Then there are whales and dolphins who, similarly, have learned (or chosen) names and while they have individual and “tribal” songs, they are on top of that able to learn the lingo of other group or “tribes”. There is no reason to assume that language isn’t older than man, perhaps even older than mammals.
What are they called, the Timons from the Lion King. Meerkats? Anyway, they can communicate verbal warnings that are very specific, like that something is approaching, what size it is, how fast it’s going, what species it is (it’s not exact, obviously, just saying they have different words for, say, humans and snakes) and what color it is. And the words they have for that are learned, as different colonies have different sounds or words for them.
I’ve been trying to keep track of this discussion and it’s an interesting one (I really enjoy reading whatever you write, Johnny) but I’m not following. What is the base argument, where did this discussion start? Are you assuming (somehow) that humans are the only species with language. Because that’s certainly not the case, using your earlier definition of language. Parrots have words, even names, that they teach (and name) their young ones with. And parrots are, well… dinosaurs. Then there are whales and dolphins who, similarly, have learned (or chosen) names and while they have individual and “tribal” songs, they are on top of that able to learn the lingo of other group or “tribes”. There is no reason to assume that language isn’t older than man, perhaps even older than mammals. What are they called, the Timons from the Lion King. Meerkats? Anyway, they can communicate verbal warnings that are very specific, like that something is approaching, what size it is, how fast it’s going, what species it is (it’s not exact, obviously, just saying they have different words for, say, humans and snakes) and what color it is. And the words they have for that are learned, as different colonies have different sounds or words for them.
My point is that communicating verbally and even non-verbally is not language even though sounds or signs may be regular or repeated. The example here is that a fingernail can peel an orange and a knife can peel an orange, but a knife can also use that principle to allow people to do more with it than they could with just their fingernails.
So, I’m distinguishing communication with sound – speech – or gesture from language. We are so tied up with speaking using language that we often think any communication is using language, but language is orders of magnitude more useful than using unstructured sound to communicate. Just as using a knife changed the capabilities of people who had that technology, using language expands the capabilities of people who use it, but not only that, it changes the way people structure their own thoughts.
A good distinction here is that there are many animals that can use a specific apparently inborn sound to communicate a variety of information or feelings. Like with the meerkats, one example would be the sound a deer makes to warn others that a predator is nearby. So, we would say that the deer is saying “there is a lion around here.” Essentially, natural speech in animals is complex, but doesn’t have the utility that language provided hominids – particularly homo sapiens.
However, language adds layer upon layer of possibility to that. For example, a deer or meerkat cannot say “I think there might be a lion over here” and another deer nearby might be able to repeat the sound to communicate essentially the same warning, but that deer cannot say “he says he thinks there might be a lion over there.” A meerkat or deer can’t make a sound that says “what if a lion shows up” or “the last time we saw a lion, it was around here” or “keep an eye out for lions when we get over there.” As a technology, language – as opposed to the physical act of using sounds or signs to communicate information – frees the user of those sounds and signs from the present place and the present time. That’s a terrific shift in utility.
The idea that humans were always using sound to communicate and that it was as varied or more so than any other animal is very likely possible, but I think the ability to communicate using language could have been very sudden and rapidly developed innovation built up from that basic biological urge and then maintained, passed on and developed as groups expanded, reproduced and encountered each other. There is no reason to think it was a gradual development over generations – or across species as they evolved – versus a very immediate discovery in homo sapiens and other hominids.
There is no reason to think it was a gradual development over generations
Sure there is. The brain has an entire part of it dedicated to language. It’s a not entirely clear exactly how it operates (as is everything with in the brain), BUT… A part of the brain, distinct and shared between all people. It’s in the same part of the brain across all human populations (generally speaking, there are of course anomalies and mutations). That doesn’t just appear out of ideas and innovation. If it did, our kids would have a part of their brain dedicated to computers. It takes time for something like that to coalesce, probably hundreds of generations.
Saying that the different parts of the brain aren’t worth distinguishing from each other like this is like saying the eyelid is just like any other part of the skin.
Sure there is. The brain has an entire part of it dedicated to language. It’s a not entirely clear exactly how it operates (as is everything with in the brain), BUT… A part of the brain, distinct and shared between all people. It’s in the same part of the brain across all human populations (generally speaking, there are of course anomalies and mutations). That doesn’t just appear out of ideas and innovation. If it did, our kids would have a part of their brain dedicated to computers. It takes time for something like that to coalesce, probably hundreds of generations.
However, that’s why it would have been just as likely language developed as soon as the physiological capacity for it was present in the organism. I mean, no one would suggest the use of language caused physiological mutations in the brain that facilitated language use over generations of evolution or that evolution of the brain occurred with the intent to allow the use of language. That seems absurd, as genetics do not develop that way. The brain would have had to evolved as it was before humans used language. It’s not that the brain evolves new parts over generations based on its use – that’s not how random mutations and natural selection operate.
Physiologically, there is no reason to believe we are any different from the very first animal that shared our genome, so that means that not only were they born with everything biologically necessary to speak (or sign) and use language, but that if we could actually bring one of those people to our time, we could teach them to speak our language even if they had never used language.
Since language needs all these biological traits in place, it seems very likely to me that it would have been discovered fairly early and developed extremely rapidly rather than have been some gradual process as there is no need to wait for evolution to develop further mutations for it.
However, I can see that a species using speech like that – whales, dolphins, meerkats – would be more likely to take advantage of a mutations that significantly went toward increasing that part of the brain. So, you have one species that uses complex speech and gesture, so mutations that facilitated that would be passed on to the next genome that developed in that line. That would be a good explanation how hominid groups developed separate from other great apes. And it is possible that other hominids used language as well – though maybe not as technoligically advanced as homo sapiens. Nevertheless, I think of language as the discovery of a new technology that was already present as a potential in the organism with no further changes in the the anatomy necessary – so there is no reason to believe that as soon as an organism had the potential to use language that it would take generations before it did or that that language was any less advanced fundamentally than our own.
Saying that the different parts of the brain aren’t worth distinguishing from each other like this is like saying the eyelid is just like any other part of the skin.
You may think the brain is this special amazing pinnacle of evolution, but look what’s telling you that! If the brain was simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand it. It’s constantly gaslighting us.
Which is the way this started. I pointed out that language makes us think in a certain way that leads to a lot of illogical questions and assumptions that, in fact, we can’t avoid thinking. Like “is there a god?” “What is love?” “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
Most of this is speculation because how could we ever know how language developed. However, the distinction between language as a form of communication and the broader spectrum of communication between organisms is important. We don’t often see language as a way of communicating that has its own limitations compared to other ways because it is the way we communicate externally and internally. It’s impossible to think about language without thinking in a language.
Certainly, going back through the long line of of hominid ancestors, it is just as likely certain species developed the ability to use language and as that conveyed an advantage, it would be passed on and those who used it the best would have had more children encouraging that trait in them AND any mutations in the physiological areas like the brain and larynx that supported it would have emerged in these species and been propagated by them through the generations so that a descendant species would develop even more versatile languages. That’s possible and likely as well.
However, the use of language in any form is predicated upon the biological ability being already present in the organism so there is no reason to think that an organism that could use language would not have been doing so relatively rapidly. At the same time, technical advancement often depends upon opportunity. A species that had all the biological prerequisites to use flint or wooden tools would obviously not do so if there was no flint or workable wood in the vicinity. So, there would have had to have been an opportunity or necessity to use language too. A moment of discovery which would mean that it could be immediate or take hundreds of generations before it happened even if the organism was capable of it.
My point though is that there is no necessity to assume it did, or that after it happened, it would continue to take a long period of time before its use advanced.
I mean, no one would suggest the use of language caused physiological mutations in the brain that facilitated language use over generations of evolution or that evolution of the brain occurred with the intent to allow the use of language. That seems absurd, as genetics do not develop that way. The brain would have had to evolved as it was before humans used language. It’s not that the brain evolves new parts over generations based on its use – that’s not how random mutations and natural selection operate.
Agreed. However, when you say that “There is no reason to think it was a gradual development over generations” that just doesn’t work for me. Maybe I’m stupid, and I’m a bit on edge today so I might not make sense, but please have some patience with me.
As you said earlier when an evolutionary trait (like legs) has evolved, it will be put to immediate use (standing/walking, or at a later developmental stage, running) by the organism. The evolved trait will be put to use in accordance with ability and necessity. If it gives the organism an advantage, it sticks. If not, bye-bye. That’s how evolution works. Right?
This means that when the prerequisites for language have developed to any extent, the individuals with those traits will have to have put their capabilities to use both instinctively and to the full extent of their ability when the necessity arrives.
Which would inevitably lead to, at least in the case with humans and hominids that can’t survive on their own until they’ve grown to a measure of maturity, applying this to whatever means of communication is supplied by their group since it’s the most cost efficient way to do it.
That would also mean that when a language center started to coalesce in the brain, the individual(s) in which it developed would have had an evolutionary advantage from it however rudimentary it would be, and they would put it to said use immediately, consciously or no. Granted, it would probably not be very complex language for the first individuals that compartmentalized their other forms of communication in what we call a “language center” but if we assume that they had means of vocalisation already, it would definitely be language if the definition thereof is so loose as “codified and regularized sounds repeated to convey the same meaning across members of a group“.
Thus, the software (language) must have grown concurrently with the hardware (the brain) developing, both of which would only happen out of evolutionary advantages it provides, or necessity – whatever you want to call it. And, as we already concurred, it would take a shitload of time for the brain to physically develop something like the language center we are born with today. Doesn’t this prove that language couldn’t have happened quickly, but must’ve come in small increments as the tools for it slowly came to develop?
And if it had happened quickly it would likely just have been a very select few individuals (not necessarily in the same group) who got both the need, the tools and the idea to start communicating in ways that must seem outlandish to their peers. I mean, try communicating the abstract idea that you can in fact communicate abstract ideas to others that don’t communicate abstract ideas. It sounds a lot like “Try explaining quantum physics to a bacterium.” to me.
Our closest relatives, gorillas and chimps, use language. They don’t communicate with each other using the ones we teach them, since there’s no need, but they can use it to communicate with us. So, they learn language. And their use can be fairly complex too.
One of those sign-language gorillas knowingly lied to their care-taker: She had ripped the sink right off the wall, and when the care-taker asked her why, she said it was the cat that did it. Admittedly not the best lie, but that’s a pretty complex array of ideas. Abstract causality transmitted to another species. By necessity (not wanting to get punished).
They don’t need to talk among themselves about anything like that though. Their problems are solved through different means. While they undoubtedly are capable of language (but not vocalisation, at least not like us) the prerequisites for meaningful abstract thought (like the frontal lobe) isn’t developed with them. Because it isn’t needed. They get by, hang out in groups, eat shitloads of abundant foliage, and they are 500lbs Massive Death Machines that sit wherever they want to. Brawns over brains.
Seeing as they’re already covered, using languages we’ve taught them to communicate amongst themselves is s a waste of time and energy. But they do use rudimentary forms of codifiable and regularized expressions of language conveying such abstract ideas like “I would like you to come here and groom me” using face-, body- and sign-language.
I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that having a language became a necessity so fast that the origin of language only spans a few generations, while we at the same time by mere chance had evolved juuuuust the right tools and conditions for it – over the last millions or hundreds of thousands years!
Evolution is slow, but that is the development of a physiological ability. However, once the ability is developed, organisms use it right away. Watch a colt after it is born. Within a few hours, it is running. It isn’t taught how to do that.
You are making a wrong assumption in separating the physilogical from the mental capacities there. The instinct to run also had to develop, right along with the legs. If you put the brain of a dolphin inside the colt’s body, it won’t be able to run just because it has the legs.
On the level of instincts, you can’t separate physical from mental processes, is the point here.
Certainly, that physiological ability took time to evolve, but once it did, there is no reason to assume that it would have taken generations to develop into language or that even using language took generations to develop.
Again, that is a wrong understanding of evolution. It doesn’t just stop when something is “finished”. There is no such thing. Our physiological ability to speak continued to develop throughout time until today, and so did our mental ability to speak along with it.
However, just as the ability to conceive of, sharpen and hold a blade is a necessary physical prerequisite to invent a knife, the discovery of language could have been an immediate and rapid development as a technology because the physiological basics were in place. We’ve gone from vacuum tube radio sets to smartphones in a single generation. There is no reason to believe that the discovery of language wasn’t immediate and developed rapidly in much the same way.
One of the main reasons to believe that is that language is not something you can invent in one generation. That’s what I talked about when I was mentioning Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device. You can’t go from tabula rasa to developing a language based on just our general logical abilities; like the colt’s instinct for running, we have a language-learning instinct that is hard-wired in our brains, and that has to be a result of a long time of evolution; it couldn’t just have popped up from nowhere. And it’s not something that can just happen in one generation of mutation.
It’s not that the brain evolves new parts over generations based on its use – that’s not how random mutations and natural selection operate.
Of course it does. We didn’t go from a chimpanzee-size brain to ours with its language centre in one generation; of course it happens over time. The ability to communicate better is a survival trait, so a mutation improving on that ability would be passed on. And so would the next little mutation. And so on, and so on. Slow development, not sudden creation of a whole new area of the brain.
Also, what Anders said with rather more patience, and which boils down to the point that such a complex physical and mental trait would have to develop over millions of years unused according to your theory, which is just not something that happens because it wouldn’t have been a survival trait.
(You could theoretically surmise that the physical abilities developed for a different purpose and were there for that reason when someone suddenly came up with the idea of language, but that is for one thing extremely unlikely and for the other ignores that the ability to learn and create language needs mental capacities whose basis are an evolution of areas of the brain that would also have to take place.)
This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Christian.
Language is the ability to a. Describe a situation that never has been encountered by the population and b. Describe unreal events. Animals can only signal known threats, or a general signal that an unknown threat is coming, and can’t signal fictional events.
While she only said “the cat did [it]” in sign language, Koko the gorilla was relaying to her care-taker the idea that the cat had ripped the sink from the wall and thrown it across the room.
That sounds fictional to me.
(I want to trust Bernadette when she says the cat did it, but I can’t for the sake of argument.)
And then there are parrots. Some species name their chicks shortly after they’ve hatched, and the chicks stick with that name for the rest of their lives, using it to introduce themselves. I don’t think parrot-language is complex enough to name the chick something like “delicious foliage from that tree over there” or “hatched ass-first” or whatever. I would believe it’s just more or less random, distinct and, at least to them, pleasurable noises. (Which is exactly how people these days name their kids. Nominative determinism is dead!)
My point is, a name is an abstract and concept derived from fiction. It’s not “whee-clickety-squawks”, it’s just a regular parrot. Much like I’m not “Anders”, I’m just a pasty human. Nothing scientifically meaningful or in any way quantifiable can be derived from what your name is. I would argue that it is a sign parrots are also capable of language under the definitions you gave, Kalman.
Koko adored cats. She must’ve been in a right strop to blame her pal. Perhaps she was trying to give her a bath. I didn’t know until I looked her up this morning: she called her first kitten All Ball. Awwww. Her favourite books were Puss in Boots and The Three Little Kittens. They tried to fob her off with a toy kitten at first and she was having none of it. She got scared of her toy dinosaurs after seeing ads for Jurassic Park.
She had a nice response to the question of where the dead go: a comfortable hole. Now I want to know if she was a Tolkien fan. Her philosophy on life was sweet. People be polite. People have goodness. Although, how much of her responses are really hers and how much are due to the interpreters? You only have to look around here to see how often things get lost in translation.
Did Chompystomp ever alter his stance on animal communication? From what I’ve read he dismissed it as science fiction.
Also, what Anders said with rather more patience, and which boils down to the point that such a complex physical and mental trait would have to develop over millions of years unused according to your theory, which is just not something that happens because it wouldn’t have been a survival trait. (You could theoretically surmise that the physical abilities developed for a different purpose and were there for that reason when someone suddenly came up with the idea of language, but that is for one thing extremely unlikely and for the other ignores that the ability to learn and create language needs mental capacities whose basis are an evolution of areas of the brain that would also have to take place.)
Exactly, it’s not that they would have to develop unused, but used differently for purposes that we no longer use them for.
However, what I’m pointing out is that there are a lot of assumptions for either gradual or rapid development. Here’s an analogy – look at the previously mentioned use of a knife.
Now, from the model your proposing, there would have had to have been some ancestor species that was not physically developed that you could suggest picked up a sharp rock and used that instead of its fingernails and teeth. It’s similar to the way that some apes use sticks for various purposes. However, without a few other physiological properties, that sharp rock would not become a worked knife no matter how many generations the species passed on the knowledge that sharp rocks are useful and how to use them. (However, the skill to use rocks would have developed either quickly or slowly with no regard to physical changes over generations. You could see every member of this species learning to do this in relatively no time. Such as the way grizzly bears learn how to open various models of cars in national parks to steal food. They didn’t need to evolve carjacking abilities.)
Then after a few hundred generations or so, there is a mutation that allowed better manipulation of the stone conveying an advantage so that that strain had a better chance of survival and reproduced essentially replacing the previous species. Then, that proceeded into future mutations.
That’s similar to the prevalent theory you would propose for the progression across many species down a genetic line from animals that could not use language to animals that could.
However, the physical changes that allowed better manipulation of stones would have also been useful in a variety of other circumstances having nothing to do with developing knives. So, all the physical changes across species could have occurred with no use of a sharp stone tool. Then, a species that had developed all the prerequisite physiological needs to create and use knives could discover the technology. My premise is that if that was the case, then the development of the knife as well as many stone tools would have progressed rapidly with no further evolutionary changes necessary.
As Anders pointed out, many animals that don’t use language are still able to communicate a great deal of information vocally and with gesture. As that ability conveys a natural and useful advantage, then mutations to it would occur without the need for the present use of any kind of language to develop to drive those mutations. Also, apes obviously have the ability to learn languages – as do some birds – and basic math skills, but this ability doesn’t express itself in the wild. We have to teach it to them. So animals apparently do possess complicated physical attributes that they don’t necessarily express or use until they encounter situations where they do use them in that way. Until they discover them. Even in the case of an ancestor ape species that started using rudimentary language, it would have had to discover that use as well, and that skill could have rapidly developed to its furthest possible extent irrespective of any evolutionary changes.
So, it is possible that all the physiological basics in the brain and body, particularly the voice, could have already been present before any languages were used. And that once that animal that had all these physical attributes started using language, then there would be no need for any further changes in the body or brain for it to rapidly develop into what we speak today.
Now, I admit that seems unlikely, but my question is to why it seems unlikely. I think it seems unlikely because we think of language and the brain as complicated things when likely they only seem complicated from our perspective. The eye for example seems like a complicated organ to us, but nearly every animal in the world has eyes so it could be one of the simplest things in the world.
As Anders pointed out, many animals that don’t use language are still able to communicate a great deal of information vocally and with gesture. As that ability conveys a natural and useful advantage, then mutations to it would occur without the need for the present use of any kind of language to develop to drive those mutations. Also, apes obviously have the ability to learn languages – as do some birds – and basic math skills, but this ability doesn’t express itself in the wild.
I can go along with everything you say before that, but I think that is a fallacy. If you are precise, the fact is that these abilities don’t express themselves in the wild in a way that we recognise. We can teach them to use these abilities in a way that we as humans can immediately appreciate; but there is no reason to assume that these abilities do not express themselves in a way that contributes to the species’ survival in the wild, and every reason to assume that they do.
So, it is possible that all the physiological basics in the brain and body, particularly the voice, could have already been present before any languages were used. And that once that animal that had all these physical attributes started using language, then there would be no need for any further changes in the body or brain for it to rapidly develop into what we speak today.
It is theoretically possible where the speech organs are concerned – the lowering of the larynx, the FOX-P2 gene, the development of our specific tongue, lips and respiratory control, all of which are instrumental to the way we use language and would have to have different reasons for their development – but how do you suppose the instinct and ability to develop a grammar and create a language would have evolved in our brains? What other purpose would be imaginable for that?
In the end, you would need a huge number of very improbable coincidence to lead to the result you want, in contrast of the likelihood of language developing the way pretty much everything else in evolution has (including our eye) – by being in use for many, many generations and becoming more complex and more efficient over time. I think this is one of the cases in which talking about Occam’s razor actually makes sense.
There actually is every reason to make that assumption and none backing your theory, thought-provoking as it may be. The only evidence that backs up your theory is that it appeals to you.
I can go along with everything you say before that, but I think that is a fallacy. If you are precise, the fact is that these abilities don’t express themselves in the wild in a way that we recognise. We can teach them to use these abilities in a way that we as humans can immediately appreciate; but there is no reason to assume that these abilities do not express themselves in a way that contributes to the species’ survival in the wild, and every reason to assume that they do.
That’s my point though. I’m not saying that these abilities don’t express themselves in a way that contributes to their survival BUT that obviously they don’t express themselves as a language because they have not discovered language. Koko the gorilla, for example, teaches other apes introduced to her how to use sign language. She’s learned sign language and she passes it on. She didn’t have to evolve to learn sign language; she already had that biological ability and certainly all apes must use some complex forms of communication, but sign language – the ability to express concepts in a codified and conceptually distinct manner is a technology that has to be discovered and propagated irrespective of evolutionary changes in the species.
A species could learn language very early and take advantage of certain mutations that enhance that skill or it could develop language skills fairly late after already evolving the potential to do so and then develop that language either slowly or rapidly irrespective of any further evolved traits.
It is theoretically possible where the speech organs are concerned – the lowering of the larynx, the FOX-P2 gene, the development of our specific tongue, lips and respiratory control, all of which are instrumental to the way we use language and would have to have different reasons for their development – but how do you suppose the instinct and ability to develop a grammar and create a language would have evolved in our brains? What other purpose would be imaginable for that?
You answer that question in the paragraph above. You say “If you are precise, the fact is that these abilities don’t express themselves in the wild in a way that we recognise.” So, just because our ancestors were not using language doesn’t mean they prehistoric peoples were not using abilities that they had already evolved in a way that would facilitate the discovery of language and its propagation. You seem to suggest that gorillas are using a “language” in the wild and that is why we can teach them sign language. However, that seems to blur the distinction.
Gorillas certainly have a complex form of communication, I’m sure, that fits their social life in the wild, but language is more than simply any complex form of communication. The way we can tell this is that we can teach gorillas how to use sign language, but they cannot teach us their form of communication. We can learn it, somewhat from observing and interacting with them, but they cannot teach it to us. So if we can’t even really determine – or “recognize” – how gorillas here in the present day are using the latent language forming abilities in their physiology, then certainly we won’t be able to firmly state how our ancestors in our distant prehistoric past – who we have hardly any evidence that they even existed – were using those abilities before they discovered language.
It is reasonable to propose that the technology of language as we use it – or as we can teach it to other apes – as a codified and precise means of using physical gestures or sounds to communicate information in a detailed manner and to convey and develop other skills because of that precision – would have required much larger social groups spread over greater distances before conditions made its development necessary and those conditions almost certainly arose after the species had evolved into homo sapiens sapiens. Or it could be that the discovery of language in groups allowed that expansion, but that would have also been after the species had already evolved the ability to use it.
Another analogous example here would be mathematics, and literacy, to some extent. The people who painted the caves of Altamira in Spain 30,000 years ago or so may or may not have had a language. However, they almost certainly could have learned a language and they could have learned to write and they could have learned to do calculus had they needed to or discovered them. We can assume they would have had all the necessary mental and physical abilities to do everything that we can today.
However, higher mathematics and literacy were discoveries that certainly seem natural to us today. Prehistoric people were able to do basic math and keep track of the passage of time, but there is no indication they would have multiplied, divided, found the square root or used physics and geometry (though those last two would have been useful for a hunter in cartography or the ballistics of spears and arrows). It wasn’t until there were social changes that provided the opportunity to make that discovery that they happened, and so far there haven’t been any discernible changes to our genome or physiology as a result. There quite possibly will be, but it is not a certainty, and there is no reason to believe that a math genius like Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein will have children who are also math geniuses.
So, as you say, it “seems” that the brain evolved to use language, but it also seems like mathematics is something that the brain evolved for as well, but humans haven’t been using geometry and calculus and any of the higher mathematics that our brains can process for tens of thousands of years and certainly ancestors before homo sapiens weren’t using it, but they were using brains that could have done so – and even seem designed to do so – if they discovered it or needed it. Likely, they were also using the abilities present in ways that were also useful to survival and reproduction.
Isn’t the discovery of mathematics just as complex a human ability as language and isn’t math just as much a result of the function of our brains as language is? Yet what we consider mathematics today has developed quite rapidly in relative terms only in the past few generations of the entire line of the species. In fact only the the past few centuries has it exploded in complexity and utility. Would you say that it is “improbably coincidental” that all the physiological capabilities for it lay “dormant” for all that time before it was used in this way?
Some people are able to play the piano almost as soon as they sit in front of one. “Playing by ear.” Obviously, it would be stretching to say that we evolved to play the piano. Instead, we evolved with the potential, but we had to discover it, and it is likely that just like apes and some birds can learn to use language and basic math – though not nearly as well as us – there are many other complex behaviors or skills that are a natural potential in our bodies and brains but we just haven’t discovered them yet.
There actually is every reason to make that assumption and none backing your theory, thought-provoking as it may be. The only evidence that backs up your theory is that it appeals to you.
I agree, it is a very appealing theory. Thank you for noticing!
In fact, I think I’ll write a story based on it called The Greater Ape.
It’s millions of years ago with the survivors of a great prehistoric primate civilization that destroyed itself in a great global conflict. This ape – though it looks like a walking gorilla – is mentally and physically superior with a lifespan much longer than humans and she almost by accident rescues a small family group of early homo sapiens from a lion attack. She treats the humans’ wounds and they start to follow her around eventually she starts to treat them like pets or domestic animals she can use to facilitate her own survival. Eventually, she notices that the children of the group are mimicking her speech, so she teaches them a rudimentary language. After a few generations, the languages becomes more complex and useful though not nearly as developed as her own, and over the years many of the humans have run away or been driven out due to social skirmishes. She doesn’t really care about the loss because she only needs a few humans to do the necessities of surviving and more humans are just a burden on resources.
Then one night, there is an attack on the settlement. The outcast humans have formed a new social group and they have come to raid her settlement. None of them dare attack her, but they completely wipe out her “pets” the ones that she kept on the settlement. After the massacre, they bow their heads to her in supplication, and she realizes that language can be a weapon and it led not only to the formation but also to the destruction of her own civilization and now she’s passed it on to theirs.
Thus, the software (language) must have grown concurrently with the hardware (the brain) developing, both of which would only happen out of evolutionary advantages it provides, or necessity – whatever you want to call it. And, as we already concurred, it would take a shitload of time for the brain to physically develop something like the language center we are born with today. Doesn’t this prove that language couldn’t have happened quickly, but must’ve come in small increments as the tools for it slowly came to develop?
All good points, but here is the distinction I would make. Let’s say that any form of communication is a kind of software. The distinction I would make is between any form of communication and the use of language as a form of communication is that the latter is closer to an operating system.
Now, you can see how operating systems can improve over time on the same hardware. My point is that humans, even with the hardware for language, would not necessarily need to develop it and communication in the groups would be important but would not really be any more important than hunting, fishing, swimming (another interesting ability humans have that other apes do not) and so on. Also, the way of communication would not necessarily affect the way that these people did all those other tasks. However, when they discovered language as a way of organizing thoughts for communication, that would affect everything they did – and as we’ve seen with the animals and apes that we’ve taught language to, it is rapidly developed and passed on.
So, the hardware physiology would not have to change for the software technology of language to rapidly develop. It could have but it doesn’t necessarily have to – and the hardware physiology could develop simply from natural advantages long before any language is discovered or adopted.
We seem evolved to use language, but like any skill, it is still acquired. There are cases of feral children who never learned language even after they were rescued, castaways who lost the ability to use language and, of course, relearned it once they were socialized. If it seems obvious that we had to evolve simultaneously with language, then why do anthropologists ignore the aquatic ape hypothesis in regard to how we developed the ability to swim? It uses the same reasoning – that humans developed physiological traits based on their nearness to bodies of water rather than they had those traits and coincidentally discovered how to swim.
The apparent stasis for tens of thousands of years evident in the scant remains of paleolithic and neolithic cultures could be due to a lack of any language usage in those ancestors. They could have had the ability to but did not discover language, writing, higher mathematics as their physiological abilities would be no worse – or possibly even better than – ours. However, there is a point around 5,000 years ago where human society rapidly developed into essentially a global civilization – the bronze age – when almost all human cultures were tied together. Perhaps that was because language was truly discovered far later in our development as a species and rapidly advanced into civilization. Our ancestors could’ve started using language 5 million years ago and evolved into homo sapiens and languages developed with them or homo sapiens could have had the ability to use language but never discovered it until those aliens who built the pyramids taught it to us 10,000 years ago.
My point is that humans, even with the hardware for language, would not necessarily need to develop it and communication in the groups would be important but would not really be any more important than hunting, fishing, swimming (another interesting ability humans have that other apes do not) and so on.
While I was instinctively going to give you a flat “No.” as carrying around dead weight inside the noggin sounds outlandishly stupid regarding the weight of it compared to our body size at birth is such a big design flaw I’m two minds about calling it a game-breaking bug for new players.
But… I looked into it because I am literally done participating in this and wanted to take a not so emgibberished bow.
The language center isn’t a center as such, it’s dispersed over larger areas in different parts of the brain.
Check this out. *slaps both brains*
T
Both of these blobs can fit more language decoding neurons than you’d believe. Want to take them for a spin?
The yellow area is uhh *checks wiki* “playing a central role in processing syntax, grammar, and sentence structure. “.
The blue area is *double checks* “for understanding oral language”
Picked this image because… must. control. fingers…. must. not. gibber.
But what are you suggesting exactly? That that proves humans had to be using language to develop the ability to use language?
Essentially, like in that picture, it shows that humans and chimpanzees could have language-ready brains or that the use of language actually develops those areas of the brain in the individual organism – not over a lineage of the species. However, it doesn’t really prove that the brain evolved that way as a result of the use of language. Those areas of the brain could have been present long before language was discovered and being used in other ways for any number of activities. The fact that chimpanzees don’t naturally form languages in any way like ours but can and do develop language skills when we teach them to chimps or other great apes suggests that language is a skill – or technology – that must be implemented rather than a simple expression of the physiology of the brain.
<p style=”box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-family: ‘Helvetica Neue’, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; border-radius: 0px !important;”>”One interpretation of our results is that chimpanzees have, in essence, a ‘language-ready brain,’ ” he said. “By this, we are suggesting that apes are born with and use the brain areas identified here when producing signals that are part of their communicative repertoire.</p>
<p style=”box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-family: ‘Helvetica Neue’, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; border-radius: 0px !important;”>“Alternatively, one might argue that, because our apes were captive-born and producing communicative signals not seen often in the wild, the specific learning and use of these signals ‘induced’ the pattern of brain activation we saw. This would suggest that there is tremendous plasticity in the chimpanzee brain, as there is in the human brain, and that the development of certain kinds of communicative signals might directly influence the structure and function of the brain.”</p>
My argument here is that the way we use language to communicate is a skill or technology that developed from the physiological ability like any technology, but that language use would not be necessary to drive the development of the brain’s potential to make it, and that the discovery of language itself caused, and still causes, a drastic and rapid change in the social behavior and individual minds of human beings with no further evolutionary changes to the organism necessary. Chimps don’t use language any way like we do in the wild, but they have brains that could use language very much like we do if they are exposed to it. Threrefore, it is no stretch to say that we developed adaptability in those areas of the brains just like they did without needing to develop language gradually to guide those adaptations. Either way, language would have been a discovery that would have developed irrespective of any further changes in the brain or organism.
In other words, you might say that chimps are using a “language” in the wild, but I think that ignores exactly how significantly different that language – or the “languages” of birds, whales, meerkats, etc. – are from the languages we use or the way our languages impacts the development of our sense of self and perception of the world. So much so that teaching the way we use language to other animals impacts the way they perceive themselves and the world.
I’m not saying that you are Christian are somehow “wrong” (though it seems like you’re dedicated to saying I’m wrong – though I’m probably not presenting the point well enough), but this is the thread for mind expansion that is not science. My point is that complex communication is not the same as or simply a different order of complex communication using a language such as English, German or Japanese. That it ignores some obvious distinctions of magnitude and effect to compare the two without noticing the very apparent contrast between them and the effect they have on individuals and social groups in a single generation. The former, complex communication, certainly depends on the ability of the brain and the brain of course evolved over time. However, the latter, communication using a language is a way of using the abilities of the brain – a technology – and does not need further physical evolution to develop as a skill, but it is also not a natural expression simply of the physiology. It needs to be discovered, developed, learned and passed on like any other technology, so the point of discovery could have been very early when we had brains for it or much later when we had opportunities to develop it socially.
My example of the sudden discovery of language to spur rapid social development could also apply to literacy or mathematics, as mentioned. Literacy is just another expression of the physiological ability to develop language, and as those cave paintings indicate, there is no obvious reason it didn’t develop 30,000 years ago. Those painters had the same dexterity as any modern artist today. They certainly had the dexterity to convert syntax and grammar in their language to hieroglyphs or phonetic script, but they didn’t because no one discovered it or had need to realize it.
I mean, it certainly appears that it wasn’t discovered until just a few thousand years ago – the evidence is certainly not there until Sumer and Egypt. That discovery certainly could have (and obviously did) spurred civilization on as well to its rapid advancement, but just as there is no obvious reason writing did not develop tens of thousands of years ago, there is also no obvious reason to expect that speaking using language did or that our ancestors before the evolution of homo sapiens had to be using languages for homo sapiens to have the brains that we do.
I’m not debating a point here, but exploring that distinction. It’s not trolling – or to be more genuine, what I’m doing is to “trolling” what language is to birdsong.
Nice try, Johnny. I’ll indulge you. I was suggesting that consulting the sciences would
A) Be more cost-efficient (amount of effort put in – mind expandning) than arguing about consensus with a couple of comic book fans. (God, I hate those.)
B) Actually deepen your understanding
And as a an addendum, I’m also suggesting
C) That in posting that and indulgin you I might’ve broken the “without science” theme of this thread.
While she only said “the cat did [it]” in sign language, Koko the gorilla was relaying to her care-taker the idea that the cat had ripped the sink from the wall and thrown it across the room.
That sounds fictional to me.
(I want to trust Bernadette when she says the cat did it, but I can’t for the sake of argument.)
And then there are parrots. Some species name their chicks shortly after they’ve hatched, and the chicks stick with that name for the rest of their lives, using it to introduce themselves. I don’t think parrot-language is complex enough to name the chick something like “delicious foliage from that tree over there” or “hatched ass-first” or whatever. I would believe it’s just more or less random, distinct and, at least to them, pleasurable noises. (Which is exactly how people these days name their kids. Nominative determinism is dead!)
My point is, a name is an abstract and concept derived from fiction. It’s not “whee-clickety-squawks”, it’s just a regular parrot. Much like I’m not “Anders”, I’m just a pasty human. Nothing scientifically meaningful or in any way quantifiable can be derived from what your name is. I would argue that it is a sign parrots are also capable of language under the definitions you gave, Kalman.
I would love to be proven wrong though. :)
It’s more about something called displacement- Koko could ask who did it, but could not speculate. She could say the cat did it, but not that Robin Williams did it, if she never saw Williams do it. She could not use language productively, like produce a new sentence like “On the first of May of this year, Eric Trump will grow wings because he is being slowly replaced by a birdperson who likes to drink vinegar with ground cardboard mixed in”. By “fiction” I meant something that the animal never experienced or was told about.
That’s my point though. I’m not saying that these abilities don’t express themselves in a way that contributes to their survival BUT that obviously they don’t express themselves as a language because they have not discovered language. Koko the gorilla, for example, teaches other apes introduced to her how to use sign language. She’s learned sign language and she passes it on. She didn’t have to evolve to learn sign language; she already had that biological ability and certainly all apes must use some complex forms of communication, but sign language – the ability to express concepts in a codified and conceptually distinct manner is a technology that has to be discovered and propagated irrespective of evolutionary changes in the species.
Yeah, I’m sorry, but Koko isn’t a valid example. The most benevolent interpretation of her abilities is that she learned how to sign certain words, but never actually developed a grammar and syntax, which is the basis for human language. And there is a huge debate about in how far she was able to really understand what she was doing at all beyond being conditioned to use certain signs to produce a result she wanted. But there is hardly an actual linguists that would claim that what she used was language. In your terms, Jonny, what she was doing was speaking without language. The whole research into apes using language has kind of gone away since the eighties, because basically it was found that hey didn’t. That Koko was able to use language, or teach it, is pretty much a myth that just keeps hanging on.
However, higher mathematics and literacy were discoveries that certainly seem natural to us today. Prehistoric people were able to do basic math and keep track of the passage of time, but there is no indication they would have multiplied, divided, found the square root or used physics and geometry (though those last two would have been useful for a hunter in cartography or the ballistics of spears and arrows).
That’s exactly the point though.
What three-year-olds are doing when they are forming sentences is the equivalent of being able – without any training whatsoever! – to find the square root or describe a mathematic function – it is not something we can do at that age, because our brains aren’t as highly trained to develop maths as they are to develop language.
Your own example of apes speaks to this most of all: In spite of all the efforts by human psychologists and linguists to teach those apes human language, they were never able to actually use syntax, to form a proper sentence – something that human three-year-olds, who are barely able to run properly, will do automatically and quickly learn to generate an endless multitude of sentences. How is this unique and specific ability supposed to have developed without ever being used before?
We seem evolved to use language, but like any skill, it is still acquired. There are cases of feral children who never learned language even after they were rescued
That is a hugely important point: We can only really acquire language during a certain phase of the development of our brains; if we don’t learn it at that time, we never will. This once again points to a highly specific Language Acquisition Device hardwired into our brains.
EDIT:
I’m not saying that you are Christian are somehow “wrong” (though it seems like you’re dedicated to saying I’m wrong – though I’m probably not presenting the point well enough), but this is the thread for mind expansion that is not science.
Okay, I think this is where I’ve been going wrong – I was talking about whether your theory is scientifically feasible at all, which doesn’t seem to be what you are talking about, even though you started out by talking about what assumptions are based on and all that, making it seem like you were taking an empirical approach. And now you’ve linked to a wiki article that says a few sentences in that that aquatic ape theory was discredited as pseudo-science…
I think this is like lawyering for Tim, because I have a bit of a background in lingustics (as a German philology MA, I had to do some of it) and teach origins of language in school. I know too much about the science of this to discuss the issue with somebody who isn’t interested in the actual science of it but only in building theories regardless of their validity. So, you know, it’s been fun but I have to leave it at this!
This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Christian.
This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Christian.
The invention of writing is quite incredible if you properly think about it. We are talking about a form of mind-reading that can be projected thousands of years through time!
If writing is telepathy, how come half the time I’ve no clue what I’m wittering on about never mind everyone else?
You are about to see an octopus sitting in an apple tree composing a poem about jelly babies. He’s using a pencil…no, a giant purple crayon…no he’s writing with a quill. It’s a very laborious process because the quill is the feather in his hat. He likes to place it back on his head in between thoughts with the feather just so at a jaunty angle (naturally). He’s self-conscious about his locks since the hairdressers are in lockdown. What does his hat look like?
Maybe language proves God. I think language is a kind of mirror of reality, something through which we can make representations of reality which are meaningful to us. It can be used for communication, but that is not a necessity, it can be used in a solipsistic manner, to form our own reality.
Would it be possible for us to live without any language at all?
T
