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VII. Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Individuality

1. A Cultural (Geonome) Code : Systems Linguistics

Dornyei, Zoltan, et al, eds. Motivational Dynamics in Language Learning. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2014. Scholars such as Diane Larsen-Freeman and Sarah Mercer continue to revamp linguistics by applying complex dynamic systems theory to second language learning.

Dorogovtsev, S. N. and J. F. F. Mendes. Language as an Evolving Word Web. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 268/2603, 2001. A new dimension is being revealed by means of complexity science

Here we propose a theory of the evolution of language, which treats language as a self-organizing network of interacting words….We have shown that the basic characteristic of the world web structure, namely the degree distribution, does not depend on the rules of language but is determined by the general principles of the evolutionary dynamics of the word web. (2603)

Durham, William. Coevolution. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991. A significant exploration of a “social heredity,” which implies that human society possesses similar properties to an organism.

The development of the ideational theory in anthropology re-emphasizes that human beings are possessed of two major information systems, one genetic and one cultural. It forcefully reminds us that both of these systems have the potential for transmission or “inheritance” across space and time, that both have profound effects on the behavior of the organism and that both are simultaneously co-resident in each and every living human being. (9)

Ekstig, Borje. The Evolution of Language and Science Studied by Means of Biological Concepts. www.jom-emit.cfpm.org/2004/vol8/ekstig_b.html. Posted on the Journal of Memetics – Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission website, this is an update to a 1994 paper listed in New Parallels of Phylogeny and Ontogeny which expands Ekstig’s thesis and advocacy by contending that language and science involve the conveyance of conceptual memes similar in kind to genetic systems.

Fabbro, Franco, et al. The Nature and Function of Languages. Language. 7/4, 2022. In this MDPI journal, University of Udine, Italy and Free University of Brussels linguists review at length the many features that compose both human and creaturely conveyance. Sections cover Signs, Symbols and Codes (Aristotle to H. Pattee), DNA comparisons (information content), initial Hominid versions in Africa, along with many other aspects which lead to and foster vital intent for personal and social cohesion, or lack thereof. See also an opus book Biological and Neuroscientific Foundations of Philosophy by Franco Fabbro (Routledge, 2023, search).

Several studies in philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience have tried to define the nature and functions of language. Cybernetics and the mathematical theory of communication have clarified the role and functions of signals, symbols and codes involved in the transmission of information. Paleoanthropology has explored cognitive development and the origin of language in Homo sapiens, from which human beings have formed multiple languages and cultures that favor community socialization but also an increase in aggression between different groups. (Excerpt)

Language is a system for achieving a purpose, namely the construction of a network of psychic individualities that exchange the contents of their imaginations. Since human beings are social organisms, language’s invention and its development were accomplished as collective processes. Individual minds can be viewed as the “nodes” of a metaphorical Web, whereby our dialogue constitutes the software that we “download” into our minds and achieve an imaginative community. (6)

Falk, Dean. Prelinguistic Evolution in Early Hominins: Whence Motherese? Prelinguistic Evolution in Early Hominins: Whence Motherese?.. 27/4, 2004. The Florida State anthropologist achieves an innovative theory for the advent of primate and human language. A prime occasion is seen as mother-infant communication and interaction, along with learning to carry babies is a sling.

These data, along with paleoanthropological evidence, suggest that prelinguistic vocal substrates for protolanguage that had prosodic (rhythmic) features similar to contemporary motherese evolved as the trend for enlarging brains in late australopithecines/early Homo progressively increased the difficulty of parturition, thus causing a selective shift toward females that gave birth to relatively undeveloped neonates. (491)

Favareau, Donald. The Evolutionary History of Biosemiotics. Barbieri, Marcello, ed. Introduction to Biosemiotics: The New Biological Synthesis. Berlin: Springer, 2006. This chapter is available in full on the “Biosemiotics: Nature/Culture/Science/Semiosis” posting, edited by Wendy Wheeler, at www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Biosemiotics. The National University of Singapore scholar extensively reviews old and new expressions of how nature and human seem most distinguished by a textual, communicative esssence. Three main phases are noted: an original Greek, Aristotelian Semiotics Without Science when relations ruled; then Science Without Semiotics due much to Descartes via mechanism alone; and now a fledgling, international Science With Semiotics. This late repair takes as its mentors Thomas Sebeok (1920-2001), Jesper Hoffmeyer, others, along with a Danish, Estonian, and Indiana nexus. (See also Wheeler’s own writings herein). Of import is another unique entry to this historic spiral from an initial double scripted reality to a long machine singleness, and today a nascent noosphere finally as genotype and phenotype in actual nature.

Fitch, W. Tecumseh. The Evolution of Language: A Comparative Review. Biology and Philosophy. 20/2-3, 2005. The University of St. Andrews psychologist provides an extensive historical and technical update on the occasion of linguistic abilities from grunt and gesture to speech and literature newly informed by cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary theory, among other inputs. Upon reflection could the universe be seen as trying to find its voice and self-expression?

Fitch, W. Tecumseh, et al. The Evolution of the Language Faculty. Cognition. 97/2, 2005. An update on the authors’ (Fitch, Marc Hauser, and Noam Chomsky) 2002 article in Science (298/1569) in response to critical comments by Ray Jackendoff and Steven Pinker. A reply from these latter writers is included in the same issue.

Gabora, Liane. Ideas are not Replicators but Minds are. Biology and Philosophy. 19/1, 2004. In a study of whether cultures might evolve in a similar way as organisms, they can be seen to do so if their genetic-like code is not fragmentary memes (concepts, fads) but a self-organized pattern or stream of knowledge. A correspondence is then noted between this model and the way life initially originated through autocatalytic closure. (Two observations – another example of a natural genesis using the same procedure over and over, and an implication that persons might take on the guise and role of “genes.”)

In other words, although ideas do not constitute replicators, interconnected networks of them – worldviews – do, of the same clumsy sort as primitive life. Just as polymers catalyze the formation of other polymers, memories and concepts trigger reminding events that evoke other memories or concepts, and this can happen recursively to generate a stream of thought. (132-133) In summary then, culture may be viewed as a process of evolution, but the replicator is not a cultural entity such as an idea, attitude, or piece of knowledge. It is an associatively-structured, interconnected network of them; that is, an internal model of the world, or worldview. (140)

Gentner, Dedre and Stella Christie. Mutual Bootstrapping Between Language and Analogical Processing. Language and Cognition. 2/2, 2010. In this new British journal upon “cognitive linguistics,” Northwestern University psychologists offer insights that human sapience is distinguished by such a reciprocity between discrete symbolic categories and their relational, linguistic synthesis. Moreover, children especially employ this integration as they learn to think and speak.

What makes us so smart as a species, and what makes children such rapid learners? We argue that the answer to both questions lies in a mutual bootstrapping system comprised of (1) our exceptional capacity for relational cognition and (2) symbolic systems that augment this capacity. The ability to carry out structure-mapping processes of alignment and inference is inherent in human cognition. It is arguably the key inherent difference between humans and other great apes. But an equally important difference is that humans possess a symbolic language. The acquisition of language influences cognitive development in many ways. We focus here on the role of language in a mutually facilitating partnership with relational representation and reasoning. We suggest a positive feedback relation in which structural alignment processes support the acquisition of language, and in turn, language — especially relational language — supports structural alignment and reasoning. (Abstract, 261)

Gomes, M.A.F., et al. Scaling Relations for Diversity of Languages. Physica A. 271/3-4, 1999. Languages diverge by the same fractal power laws as species in an ecosystem.

The distribution of living languages is investigated and scaling relations are found for the diversity of languages as a function of the country area and population. (489)

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