More Denton: A new book; language (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 13:32 (3174 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: According to Denton what replaces mutations might be an internal rearrangement of primal structures, not the functionalism of natural selection which is a survival mechanism analysis. Competition between types may not really apply even though it seems logical… -An internal rearrangement of primal structures presumably = innovations. As I see it, adaptations are part of the survival mechanism, while innovations result from the drive for improvement, though we can't always draw a clear borderline. I don't see why the rearrangement of structures should exclude the functionalism of natural selection. It is the randomness of Darwinian mutations that is the problem - solved by intelligently targeted “rearrangements” (mutations). Competition will still be a factor, but not the only one.-DAVID: Now I'm returning to Denton and language. [...] all very young children come with a language construction guide within their brains [...]
dhw: Perhaps in the same way all weaverbirds come with a nest guide inherited from their forbears who invented the pattern, just as our forbears invented the language patterns we inherit… 
DAVID: We do not know that weaver ancestors did anything of the kind. This is only in your imagination. -We do not know that your hypothetical God created a programme for the weaverbird's nest 3.8 billion years ago. This is only in your imagination. All hypothetical, but I might just put my money on the weaverbird. 
 
dhw: As with every aspect of our culture, we have developed the basics into colossally complex structures. A sparrow builds a simple nest, and we build skyscrapers. A sparrow tweets, and we transform sounds into a vast vocabulary and myriad linguistic structures. 
DAVID: Again you have just proven we are different in kind, not degree.-Sparrows, horses, ants and humans are all different in kind and have different languages. Humans have languages which are countless degrees more complex than those of other organisms. “Kind versus degree” is a dead end.-I'm juxtaposing comments now for the sake of clarityAVID: We only know our brain had to greatly enlarge to allow for language to be spoken heard and written, requiring plastic modifications in the motor area, the auditory area, the optic area. Not to forget the physical changes required as noted by McCrone: high arched palate, dropped larynx with epiglottis, more mobile tongue, stronger lip muscles etc. […]
dhw: Once the brain establishes a need for a wider variety of sounds, the intelligent cell communities respond by transforming the machinery that makes the sounds.
DAVID: There is a chicken/egg problem here. How did the brain know there was a need to interpret sounds if the sounds could not yet be made?-You have missed the point. The need was not to interpret sounds but to MAKE sounds that would communicate the ever expanding range of subject-matter embraced by our enhanced consciousness. As with all communication among all species, there then has to be agreement that particular sounds and signals correspond to the subject-matter to be communicated (= interpretation). How did this work originally with humans? You have offered an explanation under “Brain Plasticity”: -QUOTE: "'We are all capable of retuning our brains if we're prepared to put the work in," says Szwed."-QUOTE: "'The extra flexibility that we have uncovered might be one those features that made us human, and allowed us to create a sophisticated culture…”-Your own comment: The brain is under our control and command to adapt to our various needs for new areas of activity and new connections.-This ties in with my hypothesis that cell communities can change themselves (the brain is also a cell community) and cooperate throughout the organism to do so. It explains all the changes you have listed above. (NB: Humans have “extra flexibility”, so other organisms also have flexibility.)-DAVID: And no one can find the genes to control this. Now you sound like Denton.

Why must we confine ourselves to genes? Language - like thought - is not a material object but a product and a manifestation of consciousness, whose source is unknown. Has anyone “found” your divine computer programme?
 
dhw: Saltation, as we have agreed over and over again, is fundamental to evolution - an innovation must work or it will not survive. 
DAVID: Please look at the real definition of saltation which is an unexplained sudden advance.-I know what saltation is. I am the one who keeps quoting Darwin's “Natura non facit saltum” which we disagree with. My point is that if innovations did not work swiftly (= by jumps), they would not survive.
 
dhw: God may have created the (hypothetical) original inventive, intelligent, autonomous mechanism that has enabled all organisms to do their own inventing [...] -DAVID: Yep! The IM invented all the anatomic and neurologic changes for human language with exquisite planning and everything works together beautifully, no genes to study available. Strong evidence for Denton's structuralism concept. No evidence for an IM without brain capacity, only hunt and peck.-I don't know how Denton explains the "rearrangement of primal structures", but since he is an agnostic, I doubt if he would subscribe to your divine computer programme theory, for which there is also no evidence.