Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA07689 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 19 Feb 2001 00:26:56 GMT From: <Zylogy@aol.com> Message-ID: <6.124cfc3b.27c1c1ba@aol.com> Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 19:24:26 EST Subject: Re: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk CC: Zylogy@aol.com Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_6.124cfc3b.27c1c1ba_boundary" Content-Disposition: Inline X-Mailer: 6.0 sub 10506 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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Have any of you folks discussed the historical shifts recognized to take
place as regards concepts? There is a cognititivist-oriented literature on
the subject, but as far as I know not too many people are actually doing real
studies. So for example, concrete terms evolving into abstract ones in the
history of a language seems the standard direction. I don't know of many
(actually any) the other way. Also primary concepts being strung together to
make more complex ones. This takes place it seems in the ontogeny of
conceptualization in humans, and also in the history and structure of
language.
Over time, the transparency of such combinatoric structure becomes opacified,
and after a while I guess enough reification occurs (perhaps driven by enough
numbers of examples in the mind) that the subcomponentiality just isn't there
even conceptually.
Even so, it is clear that the primes out of which all complex concepts are
derived are few in number, and are the kinds of things young children (and
higher animals) can handle. They are also the kinds of things computational
semanticians use when they try to build NLP lexicons which can interact with
their syntactic engines.
The universality of the system of primes is evident from studies on language
acquisition, as well as known processes of grammaticalization and
lexicalization historically in language. If even apes can handle this kind of
thing, might it be that animals already possess the primes in some
communicative fashion? Given the apparently greater complexity of call
systems than we had known, I think this is a strong possibility. If the
communicative system already has a handle on primes, then what about the
mind? Are these terms used consciously or not, or does that even matter.
Could consciousness about the use of prime communicative terms have evolved
gradually, so that the creatures only slowly became aware of the signals they
were giving off? Heck, even humans are only vaguely aware of all the signals
they give off!
In any case, I think its likely that all animals that live in groups, who
have a need to coordinate the movements, distribution, and actions (even
specialization as in ape monkey hunting) of their members will come up with a
system of communicative primes. The various modalities so utilized don't have
to be all of a piece- and mixtures are well known. If it works, it works.
We know that many animal communicative behavioral routines are ritualized,
often truncated, sequences of actions they would otherwise do to the real
world, reduced so as to minimize actual danger to self or others. So the
ability to string forms isn't limited to humans. The optimization of such
strings, involving streamlining, etc., takes time. I wonder whether the big
advantage humans had was that we could achieve consciously in a lifetime what
animals must do unconsciously over generations. That happens with us too,
especially in language. But actionally (such as learning a complex skill), we
can do this with our eyes open. It is interesting that it is the unconscious
processes that take intergenerational time.
Perhaps it is the very loss of perception of semantic motivation through code
shift, reduction or other form-internal change, etc., that pushes much of the
conceptual support for any particular sign into the unconscious realm. All
that pops into consciousness is the final kluge, but we have a hard time
defining it without resort to all sorts of beating about the bush, though we
can pull particular applications out by the armload. The primaries, on the
other hand, find most of their support within consciousness- you know exactly
how to envision it, but particulars are hard to come by. Interesting mirror
image situation. And one that has very deep consequences for a theory of mind
and language.
Jess Tauber
zylogy@aol.com
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