evolutionary psychology

[brewer]

The Sachs quote aside, the brain of humans is structurally different from other animals, it evolved differently, In the late Pleistocene, mankind developed language. The brain is now structured to store and use language, it must store a large lexicon of words used to converse. Man can now instruct, explain and agree, plans can now be made, strategies constructed, this is a skill available only to humans. This is the difference between human and all other animals, and it is a large difference

I don't disagree with any of what you said in this post, except evolved differently. The human brain evolved into something different. The process of evolution was not different.


Prior posts where you claimed absolutes is where I took issue.

And I appreciate the direct response, thanks.

[The Grand Nudger]

The average adult knows 30k words, but only 3k of which are unique (think of every word you know for a blanket) - and not a single human word is required to instruct, explain, agree, plan, or strategize. One can argue that our vocabulary makes us better at it, but none of those things are in any way skills only available to human beings. There's some uncertainty as to when we began to speak. By full modernity, but possibly as early as anatomic modernity - and the closer it was to the latter, the less amazingly useful speaking looks to be - as there was no significant difference between the living conditions of a human animal, and any other animal.

[Angrboda]

In a certain forest, some species are able to interpret other species' warning calls for predators. It's not clear to me that human language is any different.

[The Grand Nudger]

Difference in volume and quality, not kind, we imagine.

Then you watch something like that famous painted dog scene in planet earth and think - yup..that's a fucking maneuver, and they've all learned it. I suspect they might have chatted at some point and passed it along from there. Don't even get me started (again) on plants or fungi....and plants and fungi. As I understand it, there's no single adaptation or feature of the human animal that is predominantly responsible for us being what we've become. We're generalist, not specialists - and it was the combination of all of these singularly unremarkable adaptations into one aggressive and compact package that's let us ride bareback and pantsless all over this rock.

I'm also reminded of something I read about teething, and how we should probably call it chewthing - because this is why we do it. It's not to break teeth in, but to prepare muscles for chewing which will also, coincidentally, begin to be used for talking as well. The earliest indicators that linguists point to as possibly suggesting that we could talk is evidence of diving for food nearshore - which would have required the same breathing control as speaking. We might chatter as a side effect of being hungry, and how we satisfy that hunger - not unlike a bunch of other primates....

If you can hold your breath to dive for a clam, and then chew that clam up - you can probably make noises about it that other diving clam eaters will associate with diving for clams.

[evolcon]

The average adult knows 30k words, but only 3k of which are unique (think of every word you know for a blanket) - and not a single human word is required to instruct, explain, agree, plan, or strategize.  One can argue that our vocabulary makes us better at it, but none of those things are in any way skills only available to human beings.  There's some uncertainty as to when we began to speak.  By full modernity, but possibly as early as anatomic modernity - and the closer it was to the latter, the less amazingly useful speaking looks to be - as there was no significant difference between the living conditions of a human animal, and any other animal.

not a single word to instruct, explain, agree, plan or strategize? can you elaborate.

[The Grand Nudger]

Human beings do it all the time - especially when we want or need to be quiet while doing something - or don't want the other guys to understand what we're doing.

Combinations of drilled behavior, intimate knowledge of your coparticipants abilities derived through play, and explicit body language and gestures have all been used to say.......assault a fortified position in the dead of night, or nab some fucker out of a crowd before he realizes he's been id'ed. Then, there are those dogs again - which might explain why we use them in those situations. We can communicate with and instruct and train dogs, which learn and participate in our strategies in a very exacting environment..and it's not on account of how they do words. Grantedm they;re not as good at communicating their plans to us as we are communicating ours to them...but I think that might make us the dummies in that exchange, not the dogs.

Other primates do this too, btw - in their conflicts, sans the use of dogs. Chatter goes nuts before a raid then they go silent as they cross the territory border...until it comes time to rip limb from limb in a pure orgy of blood. We're more disciplined, in that regard, we can do it calmly.

The short version - do you remember when you learned the gesture of looking at the person next to you, pointing to your eyes, and then pointing to an object you saw? Do you need to know the words for that (or for whatever you see), or any word for anything, to understand and use that prompt, to learn it..or learn from it? Imagine going into the mountains with me, and all that could be accomplished between us without a single word.and all that you could learn about being out there, and about elk... as I pointed out interesting or leverageable routine behaviors. Imagine being on a jobsite framing a house with a mute carpenter who shook his head and showed you how to do it right every time you messed up.

[evolcon]

In a certain forest, some species are able to interpret other species' warning calls for predators.  It's not clear to me that human language is any different.

A warning call is only, and always about the immediate, a human language can contain information about distant time and space. Could a animal with only warning calls warn about a predator than was prowing  the territory yesterday.

[The Grand Nudger]

You don't think that animal larders hordes and stashes or seasonal binging imply planning or some sense of a future time where conditions may not be the same?

What makes you think that you do..then.....?

-and yes, btw, prey species often throw up a warning call when they detect even the past presence of a predator. If my chickens smell fox from yesterday, they throw up a different call and behave differently than the smell of fox today.

[evolcon]

Human beings do it all the time - especially when we want or need to be quiet while doing something - or don't want the other guys to understand what we're doing.  

Combinations of drilled behavior, intimate knowledge of your coparticipants abilities derived through play, and explicit body language and gestures have all been used to say.......assault a fortified position in the dead of night, or nab some fucker out of a crowd before he realizes he's been id'ed.  Then, there are those dogs again - which might explain why we use them in those situations.  We can communicate with and instruct and train dogs, which learn and participate in our strategies in a very exacting environment..and it's not on account of how they do words.  Grantedm they;re not as good at communicating their plans to us as we are communicating ours to them...but I think that might make us the dummies in that exchange, not the dogs.

Other primates do this too, btw - in their conflicts, sans the use of dogs.  Chatter goes nuts before a raid then they go silent as they cross the territory border...until it comes time to rip limb from limb in a pure orgy of blood.  We're more disciplined, in that regard, we can do it calmly.  

The short version - do you remember when you learned the gesture of looking at the person next to you, pointing to your eyes, and then pointing to an object you saw?  Do you need to know the words for that (or for whatever you see), or any word for anything, to understand and use that prompt, to learn it..or learn from it?  Imagine going into the mountains with me, and all that could be accomplished between us without a single word.and all that you could learn about being out there, and about elk... as I pointed out interesting or leverageable routine behaviors.  Imagine being on a jobsite framing a house with a mute carpenter who shook his head and showed you how to do it right every time you messed up.

How do you explain. instruct or stratigize with out words?

[The Grand Nudger]

The same way that hominids did so before we could speak - and were already making tools and carrying out complex hits with multiple participants on dangerous animals. I could explain a hell of alot to you by simply directing your attention to a salient observation. Point to you, point to the other guy, point to the animal...make a big circle coming together with my hands about you..and slam them together..then point at the animal again. I could keep pointing everytime it drops it's head to water and hold you back until it does so the third time. On and on and on. If that works, and we get dinner...you'll probably do the same again for the next new participant.

Think about what you're saying. You're saying that mute people..even are incapable of planning, learning, explanation, strategy. It's ludicrous.

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Or, consider this another way. How..exactly, do we learn what all these words are -for- as children ?