Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA28164 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 May 2000 21:04:08 +0100 Subject: RE: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 16:01:10 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas est veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20000511200148.AAA25731@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 05/11/00 13:51, Bruce Jones said this-
>Why can't animals have societies?
>First what is your definition of a society?
They can- they do.
But, if we accept the sentence "Did language drive society or vice
versa?" then we are compelled to see the difference between those animals
that have language, and those that don't, and compare their organization.
There is much reason to say all animals have a society and that human
language lends only, uh, culture to the mix....
We do need lines of demarcation- or we need some finer grey scale of
values. I don't personally like thinking that human society is much
different, in many ways, from the other societies on this animal planet,
since I see behaviors and attributes of indentical motivations and
results.
But the advent of language _is_ a distinction.
What _will_ we do with that?
- Wade
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