Introducing the brain: language and invention (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, June 25, 2020, 12:01 (1394 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: "The ability I mean is that of hypothetical thinking...This is the key to sustained innovation and creativity, and to the development of art, science and technology. Archaic humans, in all probability, didn’t possess it. The static nature of their lifestyle suggests that they lived in the present, their attention locked on to the world, and their behaviour driven by habit and environmental stimuli. In the course of their daily activities, they might accidentally hit on a better way of doing something, but they didn’t actively think up innovations for themselves.”

I find this last remark extraordinarily presumptuous. How do you “accidentally” design a tool or a weapon? But I would suggest that the ability to innovate was probably used only for purposes of survival, and even today this ability is largely used for the same purpose, extended to encompass improvements to our means of survival, and including ways of destroying our enemies. I do agree, however, that “hypothetical thinking” has enabled us to go far, far beyond the requirements of survival. To what extent language inspires thought and thought inspires language I do not know. But there is no doubt that we give names to our discoveries and inventions – the names do not precede them! See below.

DAVID: The author notes the stasis after arrival of our large-sized brain and the beginning of real use of concepts once usable language appeared. The large brain provided a space for complex spoken language and later writing and reading language.

Stasis here is just another way of saying that for a long time, nobody came up with any new ideas. As regards language, I’d be inclined to say that concepts give rise to language and in turn language gives rise to concepts in an on-going, interactive process.