Origin of Language (Origins)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, December 25, 2013, 18:59 (3986 days ago) @ David Turell

Matt:As regards the anatomical differences, before the invention of writing, we used mainly sound, but as David says, our vocal instruments have had to be greatly refined in order to provide the range of sounds necessary for our huge variety of communications. If I were pushed into choosing one explanation over all others, I'd say it was our heightened consciousness that created the need for an ever expanding vocabulary, and the need for new sounds created pressure on the cell community to reshape itself into the organs we have today. I certainly prefer that to random mutations, but no doubt David will opt for God planning and preprogramming it a few billion years ago, or stepping in to do a dabble.
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> > Matt:I don't think the emergence of language in humans is a strong case for a creator. I really do think that the rapid advancement we see here is the result of the human organism responding and adapting to a new set of circumstances driven by the economic fact that energy stores allow for leisure and trade... and that both leisure and trade put great stress and demand to communicate in a universal fashion. Leisure allows us to create music and stories, which require the invention of words and sounds, which in turn drive anatomical changes.
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> > Matt:It also isn't a stretch to say that these ancestors were wise enough to identify those in the tribe that were better at making sounds... maybe for entertainment, maybe because they were better communicators. And then we see intelligence beginning to internally select for those individuals that could make sounds no one else could... and its complications like this that I've always said makes intelligence difficult: If human beings were smart enough to use genetics to come up with all our varieties of domestic animals, dogs, cats, etc., then it becomes really difficult to determine *how much* of our evolution wasn't co-opted by human beings ourselves. Good luck unraveling that mess...
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> I read this carefully and it doesn't fit the expert theory of Mc Crone. Get the book and review his exposition.-Is there a more modern book you can suggest? I have a hard time swallowing conclusions drawn considering that in 1992 we didn't know half as much about cognition/intelligence/evolution as we do now.

--
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\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"