More Denton: A new book; language (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, March 17, 2016, 14:00 (3173 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: [...] 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: You've neatly skipped over my whole presentation. The complexities of anatomic changes, coupled with basic reorganization of modules in the brain and the establishment of a basic language guide for babies strongly suggests saltation. -See below for saltation (your new favourite word!). I discussed the complexities when I referred to “Brain plasticity”, which showed how we can “retune” our brains: 
"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.)"
You have replied: “I agree that epigenetics shows minor adaptations, but not the giant leaps required for language.” You are simply repeating the fact that we do not know the mechanism for innovations. Hence the different hypotheses. As regards saltation, this remains controversial:
	Did Neandertals have language? | Max Planck Society www.mpg.de/7448453/Neandertals-language-QUOTE: This reassessment of the evidence goes against a saltationist scenario where a single catastrophic mutation in a single individual would suddenly give rise to language, and suggests that a gradual accumulation of biological and cultural innovations is much more plausible. -However, I don't see this as an either/or. We have no way of knowing how early language developed, but my proposal - that the need for expression gave rise to the anatomical changes and not the other way round - allows both for jumps and for a gradual accumulation.
 
DAVID: Why are all humans exactly the same in language anatomy and speech itself and babies' language guide?-What do you mean by “humans”? Do you include hominins and hominids? We can't know if our ancestors were exactly the same in speech itself, and I'm not even sure about anatomy, but what is your point? Mine, once more, is that enhanced consciousness led to the need for wider expression, and that applies to all “humans”. Consequently the brain “retuned” itself together with the cell communities associated with expression (the anatomical changes). The fact that this is common to scattered communities is logical, since they would all have had the same needs (“convergent” evolution).-DAVID: I just brought up another thought from Denton. Why no genes found for language? He feels this is a reason to consider rearrangement of structure rather than new mutations to do the job.-I wrote earlier: “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.” I still don't understand why anyone would expect language genes. Since Denton apparently offers no explanation for the restructuring, his observations - as you report them - don't seem to take us very far. But perhaps there is more to come.-dhw: 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.
DAVID: You keep misinterpreting "difference in kind." Degree =s itty-bitty; kind =s giant saltational leap. Adler's whole book point.-From all your previous references, I thought you and Adler were trying to tell us that the human mind was so totally different “in kind” from the animal mind that it was somehow proof of God's existence and we must have been specially made by God. If Adler's “whole book point” was to indicate that Darwin's gradualism is wrong and nature makes jumps, we agreed on that years ago without even considering the differences between humans and their fellow animals. 
 
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?
dhw: 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).
DAVID: I disagree. Making sounds and interpreting sounds are two separate things. They require simultaneous changes in brain and anatomy, Denton's point.-What do you disagree with? I have shown that they are separate, but the point of language is communication, and so the sounds and the interpretation must be linked. That is the reason why the changes in brain and anatomy must be simultaneous! The same applies to all innovations: the cell communities must cooperate, whether programmed to do so by your God or making their own autonomous decisions.