Different in degree or kind:our speech has pitch control (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, June 29, 2018, 13:24 (2127 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID’s comment: I've described how complex the voice mechanism is in humans, involving tongue, lips, throat, laryngeal muscles. The only interpretation [possible is when humans arrived all of this was present to be activated when humans learned how to do it. The big brain allowed all sorts of new mental activity, including that initiated by the soul.

There is another possible interpretation: as new thoughts – which you as a dualist believe to be initiated by the soul and not the brain – demanded new material actions and abilities, the brain had to expand in order to provide the means of realizing the concepts. Thought first, brain change second - as proven by modern science. Each generation builds on the discoveries of its predecessors, and the more new ideas there are, the more complex must be the means of communication. Pre-sapiens would no doubt have had to refine their own means of communicating new thoughts to one another, and eventually the more primitive sounds made by our fellow primates would not have sufficed to keep up with the advances being made by our ancestors. Just as the bigger brain and indeed most major innovations require adjustments to the rest of the body, it is perfectly possible that the need for more flexible means of communication resulted in changes throughout the network of material mechanisms that implement vocal communication. In other words, the changes involving tongue, lips, throat and laryngeal muscles were not made in advance of human speech, but were the RESULT of humans trying to develop their own means of speech.