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Joseph Jordania theorizes that human intelligence preceded articulated speech, which he suggests may have arisen as a simple neurological mutation in East Asia

by wahern 5y ago

Joseph Jordania theorizes that human intelligence preceded articulated speech, which he suggests may have arisen as a simple neurological mutation in East Asia about 40k years ago and quickly migrated back toward Europe and Africa. Jordania is an ethnomusicologist and believes that human vocal chords evolved for polyphonic singing, part of an adaptation (along with dance) permitting humans to act in tight unison for, e.g., defense and intimidation. This social mimicry permitted them to create an ecological niche into which both intelligence and altruism could grow, with articulated speech (i.e. language as we know it today) being the very last and quite recent step, and perhaps the most important distinguishing characteristic--IOW, presumably closely related hominids were nearly as or similarly intelligent and social, just lacking the ability for complex, individual speech with its concomitant benefits (greater specialization and more sophisticated culture?). AFAIU, this is in stark contrast to most anthropologists, who generally believe things happened in the reverse order, with simple language (e.g. sign language) providing the impetus for vocal chord development and articulated speech, which in turn laid the foundation for rapid coevolution of greater intelligence.

netcan 5y ago
Hmmm. I think there's been a lot of speculation about human musical tendencies and the relationship to speech and intelligence. Idk if it's wise to hypothesise that "intelligence" arises at any point. We don't have very good definitions of intelligence. Also, brain size of all homo species is massive relative to ancestral species and that seems likely to be related. Certain types of human intelligence abilities are pretty tightly coupled with speech, articulated or otherwise. Also, most primates vocalize communication and even have some vocabulary of semantic words. So, it didn't arise suddenly out of nowhere. All interesting stuff. I'll check out Jordania.
- wahern 5y ago
  What most intrigued me about Jordania's theory is that it's one of the first and few I've encountered that provides a comprehensive model for the emergence and maintenance of strong, non-kin altruism within a classical genetic evolutionary model. Jordania's complex, unified group singing and dancing displays operate to exclude free riders. If you don't strongly share both the ability to perform the display and to spontaneously exhibit the display in unison, you get eaten. (IOW, no group selection required--just basic selfish gene theory filtering out the non-cooperators.) Furthermore, the neurological mutations that developed to promote these displays would be fundamental to enhanced empathy and, in particular, the capacity and predisposition to strongly conflate group identity with individual identity--again, all with selfish gene theory. Another way of putting it is that strong socialization evolved first and drove intelligence, rather than intelligence driving stronger socialization. This explains how the trajectory of hominin intelligence broke away from other apes and mammals--nature first had to overcome the altruism barrier, which is fundamentally limited by basic sexual fitness and kinship. (Closest examples of pervasive altruism elsewhere in nature tend to revolve around kin matriarchies--bonobos, naked mole rats, and of course colony insects--and are simply modulated by genetic relatedness as would be expected by selfish gene theory.) I have no clue how probable is Jordania's theory, but it's relatively unique in comprehensively providing a plausible and distinguishable (i.e. exactly why it was serendipitous without being a miracle) pathway for the development of human altruism. And I tend to believe that strong altruism is the prerequisite for human-level intelligence. If it weren't, I fail to see how human-level intelligence wouldn't have quickly arisen many times over long before hominins. Strong, non-kin altruism and its capacity for socialization provides a unique ecological niche unto itself into which ever greater intelligence provides the enhanced degree of sexual fitness that it couldn't (and hasn't) otherwise.
  - netcan 5y ago
    I'll definitely check it out. True, verifiable or not... even the most speculative theories are interesting to me. I'm even (especially) a fan of Julian Jaynes, and his strongest claims are flat wrong. Music is certainly a wild card in the human story, and I'm interested to hear how it can be woven into our superhero origin.
jhgb 5y ago
> Joseph Jordania theorizes that human intelligence preceded articulated speech Somehow I find this claim difficult to reconcile with the existence of feral children.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  While feral children are stunted they still have human level intelligence and self awareness even with understandable quirks from very different models. For lack of better words "institutional knowledge" occurs even in deer - transplants and their descendants had worse survival rates than those who had grown up there but eventually survivors "caught up". Feral children are also a real fringe case not comparable to a pre "full language" humanity as they by neccessity would still have models of learning via observation at very least. They aren't very evolutionarily significant because like other vulnerable orphaned young mammals they almost always died.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Humans are the only animals we know to be capable of reasoning, which is a necessary component for human intelligence. They're also the only animals we know to be capable of language. I don't believe that to be a coincidence. > Feral children are also a real fringe case not comparable to a pre "full language" humanity as they by neccessity would still have models of learning via observation at very least. Sure, if your definition of intelligence is broad enough, feral children might fall into it, as might many animals. Yet I suspect that this is not what wahern's "human intelligence" was about.
    - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
      > Humans are the only animals we know to be capable of reasoning Definitely not. We know of multiple other species capable of displaying abstract reasonining. That was observed in monkeys in at least 1917 and has now been confirmed with rooks and crows. > They're also the only animals we know to be capable of language. We know of multiple marine mammals which communicate.

by wahern 5y ago

netcan 5y ago

Hmmm. I think there's been a lot of speculation about human musical tendencies and the relationship to speech and intelligence. Idk if it's wise to hypothesise that "intelligence" arises at any point. We don't have very good definitions of intelligence. Also, brain size of all homo species is massive relative to ancestral species and that seems likely to be related. Certain types of human intelligence abilities are pretty tightly coupled with speech, articulated or otherwise. Also, most primates vocalize communication and even have some vocabulary of semantic words. So, it didn't arise suddenly out of nowhere. All interesting stuff. I'll check out Jordania.

wahern 5y ago
What most intrigued me about Jordania's theory is that it's one of the first and few I've encountered that provides a comprehensive model for the emergence and maintenance of strong, non-kin altruism within a classical genetic evolutionary model. Jordania's complex, unified group singing and dancing displays operate to exclude free riders. If you don't strongly share both the ability to perform the display and to spontaneously exhibit the display in unison, you get eaten. (IOW, no group selection required--just basic selfish gene theory filtering out the non-cooperators.) Furthermore, the neurological mutations that developed to promote these displays would be fundamental to enhanced empathy and, in particular, the capacity and predisposition to strongly conflate group identity with individual identity--again, all with selfish gene theory. Another way of putting it is that strong socialization evolved first and drove intelligence, rather than intelligence driving stronger socialization. This explains how the trajectory of hominin intelligence broke away from other apes and mammals--nature first had to overcome the altruism barrier, which is fundamentally limited by basic sexual fitness and kinship. (Closest examples of pervasive altruism elsewhere in nature tend to revolve around kin matriarchies--bonobos, naked mole rats, and of course colony insects--and are simply modulated by genetic relatedness as would be expected by selfish gene theory.) I have no clue how probable is Jordania's theory, but it's relatively unique in comprehensively providing a plausible and distinguishable (i.e. exactly why it was serendipitous without being a miracle) pathway for the development of human altruism. And I tend to believe that strong altruism is the prerequisite for human-level intelligence. If it weren't, I fail to see how human-level intelligence wouldn't have quickly arisen many times over long before hominins. Strong, non-kin altruism and its capacity for socialization provides a unique ecological niche unto itself into which ever greater intelligence provides the enhanced degree of sexual fitness that it couldn't (and hasn't) otherwise.
- netcan 5y ago
  I'll definitely check it out. True, verifiable or not... even the most speculative theories are interesting to me. I'm even (especially) a fan of Julian Jaynes, and his strongest claims are flat wrong. Music is certainly a wild card in the human story, and I'm interested to hear how it can be woven into our superhero origin.

jhgb 5y ago

> Joseph Jordania theorizes that human intelligence preceded articulated speech Somehow I find this claim difficult to reconcile with the existence of feral children.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Nasrudith 5y ago
While feral children are stunted they still have human level intelligence and self awareness even with understandable quirks from very different models. For lack of better words "institutional knowledge" occurs even in deer - transplants and their descendants had worse survival rates than those who had grown up there but eventually survivors "caught up". Feral children are also a real fringe case not comparable to a pre "full language" humanity as they by neccessity would still have models of learning via observation at very least. They aren't very evolutionarily significant because like other vulnerable orphaned young mammals they almost always died.
- jhgb 5y ago
  Humans are the only animals we know to be capable of reasoning, which is a necessary component for human intelligence. They're also the only animals we know to be capable of language. I don't believe that to be a coincidence. > Feral children are also a real fringe case not comparable to a pre "full language" humanity as they by neccessity would still have models of learning via observation at very least. Sure, if your definition of intelligence is broad enough, feral children might fall into it, as might many animals. Yet I suspect that this is not what wahern's "human intelligence" was about.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    > Humans are the only animals we know to be capable of reasoning Definitely not. We know of multiple other species capable of displaying abstract reasonining. That was observed in monkeys in at least 1917 and has now been confirmed with rooks and crows. > They're also the only animals we know to be capable of language. We know of multiple marine mammals which communicate.