5 ms·

Anyone care to speculate why humans like rhymes in the first place? They do feel meaningful and important, but why?

nicklecompte 2y ago
This is pure speculation: I suspect our ancestors used music + simple words for communication long before we evolved modern human language. Although language outstripped music in terms of its precision and utility, as an evolutionary hangover we have a preference for language with musical qualities. Some """evidence""" for this claim: - The most interesting fact is that gibbons sing similarly to humans, intentionally targeting a pure tone so other gibbons can harmonize in octaves. They seem to use this for bonding and communicating their vocal state. So there's precedent for musical communication in one of our closest relatives. - Music seems useful for hominids: just like modern humans, our pre-language ancestors possibly used "work songs" as a way for large groups of foragers to ping their status. Prairie dogs do the same with their chattering - if one critter goes quiet, the rest quickly realize something is wrong. There is no evidence that human language evolved after human music, but it seems more reasonable to me than the alternative. - On the other hand, it's well-known that modern humans can be easily misled by speakers who use intellectual affectations to spritz up nonsense, and in general we tend to make lazy judgments about speakers and accept/deny their arguments accordingly. So, assuming this quirk didn't evolve very recently, I could see how "uses language musically" has the same (dishonest) social signal of intelligence as "uses big words all fancy-like," simply because 400,000 years ago the most musically talented hominids commanded the most social authority (even maybe when they shouldn't).
dragontamer 2y ago
A rhyme's meaning is afforded, as long as it isn't contorted. But some might deny, as the rhyme might belie; The truth of the subject distorted.
lupire 2y ago
Intelligence loves patterns. It's a natural form of data compression and error checking.
intended 2y ago
It’s a compression format. Having to explicitly remember (page 100, para 30) taxes memory. Since Brains are pattern recognition systems a pattern that can be easily decompressed and used to predict the next verse reduces cognitive burden. - Human brains do not store information in a format that can simply be traversed and recalled instantly. - We rebuild specific memories, based on associated precursors or memories. - The text vs audio vs touch distinction is irrelevant to a brain. Your brain will remember whatever you felt when you read Hamlet, including the sounds of the words or the smell of your bed room. - short term recall is 7-9 ‘things’. - Long term, short term and medium memory function at the same time (parallel, not sequential) In a nutshell, it’s cheaper to use multiple systems to rebuild the information.

This is pure speculation: I suspect our ancestors used music + simple words for communication long before we evolved modern human language. Although language outstripped music in terms of its precision and utility, as an evolutionary hangover we have a preference for language with musical qualities. Some """evidence""" for this claim: - The most interesting fact is that gibbons sing similarly to humans, intentionally targeting a pure tone so other gibbons can harmonize in octaves. They seem to use this for bonding and communicating their vocal state. So there's precedent for musical communication in one of our closest relatives. - Music seems useful for hominids: just like modern humans, our pre-language ancestors possibly used "work songs" as a way for large groups of foragers to ping their status. Prairie dogs do the same with their chattering - if one critter goes quiet, the rest quickly realize something is wrong. There is no evidence that human language evolved after human music, but it seems more reasonable to me than the alternative. - On the other hand, it's well-known that modern humans can be easily misled by speakers who use intellectual affectations to spritz up nonsense, and in general we tend to make lazy judgments about speakers and accept/deny their arguments accordingly. So, assuming this quirk didn't evolve very recently, I could see how "uses language musically" has the same (dishonest) social signal of intelligence as "uses big words all fancy-like," simply because 400,000 years ago the most musically talented hominids commanded the most social authority (even maybe when they shouldn't).

dragontamer 2y ago

A rhyme's meaning is afforded, as long as it isn't contorted. But some might deny, as the rhyme might belie; The truth of the subject distorted.

lupire 2y ago

Intelligence loves patterns. It's a natural form of data compression and error checking.

intended 2y ago

It’s a compression format. Having to explicitly remember (page 100, para 30) taxes memory. Since Brains are pattern recognition systems a pattern that can be easily decompressed and used to predict the next verse reduces cognitive burden. - Human brains do not store information in a format that can simply be traversed and recalled instantly. - We rebuild specific memories, based on associated precursors or memories. - The text vs audio vs touch distinction is irrelevant to a brain. Your brain will remember whatever you felt when you read Hamlet, including the sounds of the words or the smell of your bed room. - short term recall is 7-9 ‘things’. - Long term, short term and medium memory function at the same time (parallel, not sequential) In a nutshell, it’s cheaper to use multiple systems to rebuild the information.