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If that was true, then why did humans evolve to speak at all? Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been r

by brockf 15y ago

If that was true, then why did humans evolve to speak at all? Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been rewarded, would the first utterances have been made? And how do we make completely novel utterances that attempt to express our otherwise abstract thoughts?

pygy_ 15y ago
> Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been rewarded, would the first utterances have been made? Why not? Look at it from the bottom up: Communication is a fundament of life, from intra-cellular to inter-cellular to inter-organism interactions (another fundament is the ability to keep oneself in a low entropy state, at the expense of the rest of the world). Human speech is an evolution of mammal communication. It grew up in complexity, from grunts and other basic noises, along with our way of living, up to what we have now. > And how do we make completely novel utterances that attempt to express our otherwise abstract thoughts? Speech is a big collage. New is either the result of * a recombination of the sub-parts of past speech * the definition of a new word in terms of older words, or sometimes arbitrarily (for proper nouns). Nothing fancy AFAICT.
- brockf 15y ago
  There's a big difference between "grunts and basic noises" and language. Or at least, that's my opinion. In this same line, I don't believe dogs/monkeys/birds/bees have language, despite the ability to communicate. This view is just to simplistic to hold its weight when you really look at the intricacies of language and its evolutionary history which, by the way, I would suggest comes from manual gesture and not grunting.
  - pygy_ 15y ago
    > There's a big difference between "grunts and basic noises" and language. Or at least, that's my opinion. In this same line, I don't believe dogs/monkeys/birds/bees have language, despite the ability to communicate. This view is just to simplistic to hold its weight when you really look at the intricacies of language and its evolutionary history which, by the way, I would suggest comes from manual gesture and not grunting. Mu![1] But you're probably right about gestures. Wild chimps have a vocabulary of about 66 signs. We can also observe tribes with languages more primitive than ours (no pronouns, for example). But there's a missing link of several millions of years of evolution between both. What are the (known) intricacies of the evolution of our ability to communicate? There's no definitive proof for the statistical argument, but a growing amount of (neuro)scientific evidence points to it. What's (are) your alternative hypothese(s)? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative) [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21533821 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21533821
    - brockf 15y ago
      This is where the debates really begin :) I think that most people who believe in some form of the motor theory of speech perception will also believe that speech evolved from manual gesture. Others scoff at the motor theory. In fact, I'd say I'm in the minority by bringing it up with any regularity. If the question, what is "known" about the evolution of our ability to communicate, I wouldn't have much to point you towards. Most is theory based on modern evidence, somewhat like armchair psychology. Other people point to our ability to integrate non-verbal gestures into our comprehension, activation of our motor cortex prior to semantic/phonetic network activation when disambiguating difficult speech sounds, our ability to synthesize visual/auditory sources of information when the visual information relates to speech gestures (mouth/tongue movements), etc.
      - pygy_ 15y ago
        What's the link between the motor theory of speech perception and your criticism of losvedir's post? Aren't these issues completely orthogonal?
scott_s 15y ago
Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been rewarded, would the first utterances have been made? That criticism can be lobbed at all abilities that we claim came about due to evolution - which, to be clear, is all of them. The statistical model would be the mechanism, but it wouldn't be the reason why it evolved. That answer is relatively boring, and is the same one as all evolutionary processes: it appeared randomly from mutation, and it provided benefit to those that had it.
- jimbokun 15y ago
  "That answer is relatively boring, and is the same one as all evolutionary processes: it appeared randomly from mutation, and it provided benefit to those that had it." Not just boring, but a totally banal and useless answer. What kinds of mutations? In what sequence? How did it provide a survival benefit? What were the earlier forms of language like, and how did they become the languages spoken today? Just saying "evolution did it" is about as informative as saying "God did it."
  - scott_s 15y ago
    Excellent questions! That I hope someone will investigate. But brockf seemed skeptical that it was even possible for there to be an evolutionary process that produced humans with a statistical-learning-engine in their brains for language. Which I find curious, since - and this is my point - the same can be said for everything that is a result of evolutionary processes. That is, his complaint has nothing to do with language and statistical processoes. The same complaint could be lobbed at eyes.
    - brockf 15y ago
      Just to clarify my position (as it is misunderstood above): I believe it is one of the most important factors in acquiring language. 100%. However, I personally believe that it's a domain-general tool exploited by a domain-specific language module adhering to evolved instincts in language acquisition.

by brockf 15y ago

pygy_ 15y ago

> Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been rewarded, would the first utterances have been made? Why not? Look at it from the bottom up: Communication is a fundament of life, from intra-cellular to inter-cellular to inter-organism interactions (another fundament is the ability to keep oneself in a low entropy state, at the expense of the rest of the world). Human speech is an evolution of mammal communication. It grew up in complexity, from grunts and other basic noises, along with our way of living, up to what we have now. > And how do we make completely novel utterances that attempt to express our otherwise abstract thoughts? Speech is a big collage. New is either the result of * a recombination of the sub-parts of past speech * the definition of a new word in terms of older words, or sometimes arbitrarily (for proper nouns). Nothing fancy AFAICT.

brockf 15y ago
There's a big difference between "grunts and basic noises" and language. Or at least, that's my opinion. In this same line, I don't believe dogs/monkeys/birds/bees have language, despite the ability to communicate. This view is just to simplistic to hold its weight when you really look at the intricacies of language and its evolutionary history which, by the way, I would suggest comes from manual gesture and not grunting.
- pygy_ 15y ago
  > There's a big difference between "grunts and basic noises" and language. Or at least, that's my opinion. In this same line, I don't believe dogs/monkeys/birds/bees have language, despite the ability to communicate. This view is just to simplistic to hold its weight when you really look at the intricacies of language and its evolutionary history which, by the way, I would suggest comes from manual gesture and not grunting. Mu![1] But you're probably right about gestures. Wild chimps have a vocabulary of about 66 signs. We can also observe tribes with languages more primitive than ours (no pronouns, for example). But there's a missing link of several millions of years of evolution between both. What are the (known) intricacies of the evolution of our ability to communicate? There's no definitive proof for the statistical argument, but a growing amount of (neuro)scientific evidence points to it. What's (are) your alternative hypothese(s)? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative) [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21533821 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21533821
  - brockf 15y ago
    This is where the debates really begin :) I think that most people who believe in some form of the motor theory of speech perception will also believe that speech evolved from manual gesture. Others scoff at the motor theory. In fact, I'd say I'm in the minority by bringing it up with any regularity. If the question, what is "known" about the evolution of our ability to communicate, I wouldn't have much to point you towards. Most is theory based on modern evidence, somewhat like armchair psychology. Other people point to our ability to integrate non-verbal gestures into our comprehension, activation of our motor cortex prior to semantic/phonetic network activation when disambiguating difficult speech sounds, our ability to synthesize visual/auditory sources of information when the visual information relates to speech gestures (mouth/tongue movements), etc.
    - pygy_ 15y ago
      What's the link between the motor theory of speech perception and your criticism of losvedir's post? Aren't these issues completely orthogonal?

scott_s 15y ago

Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been rewarded, would the first utterances have been made? That criticism can be lobbed at all abilities that we claim came about due to evolution - which, to be clear, is all of them. The statistical model would be the mechanism, but it wouldn't be the reason why it evolved. That answer is relatively boring, and is the same one as all evolutionary processes: it appeared randomly from mutation, and it provided benefit to those that had it.

jimbokun 15y ago
"That answer is relatively boring, and is the same one as all evolutionary processes: it appeared randomly from mutation, and it provided benefit to those that had it." Not just boring, but a totally banal and useless answer. What kinds of mutations? In what sequence? How did it provide a survival benefit? What were the earlier forms of language like, and how did they become the languages spoken today? Just saying "evolution did it" is about as informative as saying "God did it."
- scott_s 15y ago
  Excellent questions! That I hope someone will investigate. But brockf seemed skeptical that it was even possible for there to be an evolutionary process that produced humans with a statistical-learning-engine in their brains for language. Which I find curious, since - and this is my point - the same can be said for everything that is a result of evolutionary processes. That is, his complaint has nothing to do with language and statistical processoes. The same complaint could be lobbed at eyes.
  - brockf 15y ago
    Just to clarify my position (as it is misunderstood above): I believe it is one of the most important factors in acquiring language. 100%. However, I personally believe that it's a domain-general tool exploited by a domain-specific language module adhering to evolved instincts in language acquisition.