RE: evolutionary psychology
August 8, 2021 at 4:27 pm
(This post was last modified: August 8, 2021 at 4:39 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Sure.
Languages are tools we use to communicate. They're generally shared between members of a population (or between similar designs when we think of artificial things) in order to facilitate that communication. A great deal of communication both within ourselves and within the wider world of life is chemical or physical, rather than verbal or written.
There are plants that emit specific VOCs when they are damaged or encounter a particular predator - not only do other plants receive that information and begin producing toxins or otherwise preparing for predation themselves...there are species that prey on those predators and home in on the VOCs the plants produce.
Just as we might grunt and wave our hands and understand it between each other, and those same sounds and gestures might even be sensible to another species - not of this talking with any of these languages appears to make anything human, not even us.
As to the human mind causing our explosive growth - IDK. We were anatomically modern 100k years ago, behavioral modernity hit 50k years ago, but the vast majority of all human growth has occurred just within living memory. Unless we got them in the last few generations then something else..or, more accurately, an immense range of other things and, sure, including language and mind, might better explain the growth of our species.
Languages are tools we use to communicate. They're generally shared between members of a population (or between similar designs when we think of artificial things) in order to facilitate that communication. A great deal of communication both within ourselves and within the wider world of life is chemical or physical, rather than verbal or written.
There are plants that emit specific VOCs when they are damaged or encounter a particular predator - not only do other plants receive that information and begin producing toxins or otherwise preparing for predation themselves...there are species that prey on those predators and home in on the VOCs the plants produce.
Just as we might grunt and wave our hands and understand it between each other, and those same sounds and gestures might even be sensible to another species - not of this talking with any of these languages appears to make anything human, not even us.
As to the human mind causing our explosive growth - IDK. We were anatomically modern 100k years ago, behavioral modernity hit 50k years ago, but the vast majority of all human growth has occurred just within living memory. Unless we got them in the last few generations then something else..or, more accurately, an immense range of other things and, sure, including language and mind, might better explain the growth of our species.
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