3 ms·
It's just, calling language emergent sounds close to the view that you have to whisper furtively when you get too close to MIT: that maybe there was no evolutio
by rspeer 10y ago
It's just, calling language emergent sounds close to the view that you have to whisper furtively when you get too close to MIT: that maybe there was no evolutionary event that created language at all, it's just a really good meme[1] that makes use of other faculties that already existed in the human brain.
Maybe universal grammar isn't a physical fact about the possible ways the human brain can communicate, it's just that if we observe 6,000 variations on an idea with the same[2] origin and try hard enough to sum them up, we'll succeed.
[1] In the original sense.
[2] Or similar origins. Maybe language is a good enough idea to arise multiple times and converge, much like eyes. And I'm not sure whether to count things like Nicaraguan Sign Language as a separate origin of language.