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You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be g
by gcanyon 2y ago
You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.
- dboreham 2y agoTheory: there are no humans without language. Consider: what language do you think in?
- davidmnoll 2y agoAs i replied to the parent comment: this was at least 200k years before speech if you go by the hyoid bone evidence
- mkl 2y agoQuite a lot of humans don't think in language, or do only some of the time, see e.g. https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue-explain-what-its-like-in-their-head-57739 https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue..., https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monologue.html https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog..., https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-internal-monologue https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-intern....
- palad1n 2y agoIndeed, there are two types of people in that regard, whose mind is blown (usually) that there is another type. One thinks in words, one has no words but a smooth stream of thought going.
- marssaxman 2y agoThat's wild - I am clearly the first sort, because I cannot imagine what "a smooth stream of thought" would even be if it were not expressed in words.
- mainecoder 2y agoIt is like your motor control thoughts, you don't think let me pickup this spoon you just pick it up, when given an equation you do not think go through the steps if x - 9 = 22, you just say x is 31 yet you have skipped in your mind there exists a base mental representation of these things some call it a small world model of a large world model encoded in an abstract knowledge representation sort of like a compilers abstract syntax tree and this representation is sort of universal in that you can take it from someone and give it to another person and they will automatically know provided that they have the requisite properties of the world model in which it exists for instance a thought about the symmetric group s3 could be transferred provided that the requisite structure for groups( just the definition, and concept of rotation exists which already exists by default in mammals).
- bla3 2y agoFor what it's worth, I used to be certain that I thought in words too. Then I moved to a different country and used a second language often enough that I sometimes think in it. I then realized that there are periods where I think in neither my native language nor in my second language, even when I'm thinking. YMMV of course.
- Zambyte 2y agoDo you find your domain of thought shifts when you do not think with language? For example, do you feel you are able to do complex reasoning without language?
- draculero 2y agoI usually dream in English - but I don't speak English. But I understand everything thanks to my dream's subtitles.
- 2y ago
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard > One thinks in words No. There are people who believe they think in words, because they haven't bothered to examine the question, but there are no people who think in words. Think about the number of people you've ever seen do a double take at the idea that "I don't know how to put this into words".
- Loughla 2y agoI absolutely think in words. There are no pictures or whatever other mental model. There is literally a narrative of words and blackness inside head.
- Aerroon 2y agoDo you prefer lions or tigers? BBQ sauce or ketchup? Green or blue? I bet you can answer all of these at a moment's notice, but where does your answer come from? Have you ever sat down and tried to reason out which one you like more? Or do you just 'know' the answer and then 'come up' with the justification afterwards? People can think in words, but it's certainly not their only way of thinking. I think the thinking in words is kind of like "thinking on paper" where you're trying to explicitly reason through something. The thinking process itself seems to be something on a deeper level.
- bbwbsb 2y agoThe crux is the word 'I'. When I say 'I' think, do I mean the conscious part of me which has direct experience of that thinking? If so, then I am denying all the of the thinking that 'I' don't do, but my brain/body does. From that perspective, the experience of thinking in words or pictures is distinct from actually thinking in words or pictures. Saying one thinks in one of these ways seems to be saying what they identify thinking with. For example, I don't usually think of fantasy as thinking. If I day dream, I wouldn't say I am thinking, but that is fairly visual. To what degree am I saying something about myself vs my identity if I say I do or don't think in words given that context? Relatedly, I've noticed that when it comes to remembering something, it is not 'I' that remember. Rather 'I' set up mental cues and direct focus, which then hopefully causes the memory to be placed within my awareness. This happens below the level of direct experience. But I might say I failed to remember, taking responsibility for something that 'I' - the part separated from the automatic functions of the body - did not do. So I'm suggesting statements about words vs pictures are about ego, metaphor and meaning-building, and not about actual mechanisms or communicating actual differences in the experience of thinking. It can be difficult to talk about these things because such conversations implicitly occur between our identities, not between who we actually are - something beyond our grasp - and the noise this introduces is something I don't know how to surmount, or if it can be surmounted.
- aurareturn 2y agoThere are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-visualize-things https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It also makes you think about consciousness and whether it’s even real.
- pcrh 2y agoWith regards to consciousness per se being real, that question was resolved with Cogito, ergo sum.
- thfuran 2y ago>If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?
- aurareturn 2y agoBecause it implies that we only behave based on how we feel, not how we think. The thinking part is an illusion. Therefore, our “consciousness” has no effect on how we behave. I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.
- MeImCounting 2y agoThinking isnt even a path to "free will". Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus just like feeling is.
- mistermann 2y agoWhere does "clearly" originate, and what does it refer to? Is "just" a synonym for "exactly" in this context?
- olalonde 2y agoI'm highly suspicious that the whole "inner vs no-inner monologue" thing doesn't actually exist and has more to do with these things being extremely hard to explain using language, and people describing their subjective experience in subtly different ways.
- epgui 2y agoI 100% do not think in words or sentences or language. It feels more like node-traversing a graph of concepts, but it's all completely abstract. While I am able to consciously play back my thoughts linguistically or visually with some effort (and at the cost of efficiency), by default there are neither words nor images. French is my first language, I'm fluent in English, and I know a bit about many languages... But I've never had an inner voice or thought in language, even when I was very young.
- MattPalmer1086 2y agoRight, very like me. Language is the front end; I use it to express thoughts when needed (to record, communicate and check reasoning) The back end is working in some kind of abstract space. I suspect people who say they think in language are not really thinking "in" language. I think we all have this abstract conceptual space in us. I'm not even sure what it means to think in language; where do the ideas and concepts come from that are being expressed? I guess some people have to internally "hear" a thought expressed before it is real to them.
- Quinner 2y agoInternal monologue (or dialogue, as it can play out as imagined conversations) is an apt name for it. Imagine reading a play. Everything is expressed as language, and ideas and concepts are expressed through that language.
- olalonde 2y agoWhat I am saying is that probably everyone thinks the way you do, it's just that not everyone would describe it in that way. For example, I'm sure you came up with this comment in your head at some point before typing it and many people would describe this as an inner monologue, whereas you apparently do not.
- raincom 2y ago"inner monologue" exists whenever people have hopes, dreams, plans, etc--thats what humans being intentional agents mean. Sure, there is a spectrum: those whose monologue is so active during the wakeful time to those whose daily brief monologue is about what to say in tomorrow's scrum standup.
- kbrkbr 2y agoResearch indicates that reality is more complex and messy than that. https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monologue.html https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog... It seems more likely that a theory that bases being an intentional agent on the notion of an inner monologue is not the best model for what's happening.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoThis is sort of the chicken and egg question though. You're basically asking if pre-human primates had language, which plausibly they did, and so consequently did the first humans who were their descendants. But somebody was the first whether they were homo sapiens or not.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoWe think in something Steven Pinker termed “mentalese”. It is distinct from human language. There are many examples of people who are cognitively normal, but either lack or have severely impaired language for various reasons. The distinction between reason and language is not widely appreciated, and is a main if not the primary reason people overestimate the abilities of LLMs.
- markerz 2y agoThis really reminds me of the recent “Hellen Keller on life before self-consciousness” and the discussion about people who were born deaf and how their thinking changed after learning sign language. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814
- davidmnoll 2y agoStating the mentalese hypothesis as fact is a bit tenuous
- BenFranklin100 2y agoSure, like most areas involving intelligence, much work is yet to be done. However, mentalese or the Language of Thought Hypothesis, occupies a much stronger position than the hypothesis that human language itself is our fundamental engine of reason, which is almost assuredly not true. This last fact has serious implications for the valuations of the majority of AI companies.
- namirez 2y agoI suspect most of our thinking is not in language until we try to articulate it to others.
- lmm 2y agoWe don't think in language. If you take the time to become fluent in two or more radically different languages then this becomes obvious.
- detourdog 2y agoLast week there was an essay posted by Helen Keller describing her own development of consciousness. Great essay and she describes it’s development.
- davidmnoll 2y agoThis was at least 200k years before the advent of speech if you go by the hyoid bone evidence.
- stubish 2y agoI would consider this evidence that language predates human vocalizations. We already know deaf children will invent signs and gestures to communicate, and language not dependent on a hyoid bone. Do we have any way of dating the relevant neural structures through genetics?
- throwaway87651 2y agoFOXP2 was thought to be the genetic basis for language, but this has been overturned[1]. As far as I know there isn't a good candidate for a gene selected for language. [1] https://www.the-scientist.com/language-gene-dethroned-64608 https://www.the-scientist.com/language-gene-dethroned-64608
- davidmnoll 2y agoI think we’d have trouble because we’d have to tie the gene to a specific linguistic cognitive function. My hypothesis is that humans configured themselves into self-replicating group structures I’d call institutions, and language evolved as a way to facilitate that. These institutions exhibit all the thermodynamic properties of life, and they have goal directed behavior independent of individual humans.
- kgeist 2y agoWhat if the first language was a sort of sign language, and vocalizations were only auxiliary, optional? With time, humans who vocalized had a better chance to be understood, and their vocal tract evolved. Humans instinctively gesture to this day when speaking.
- davidmnoll 2y agoThis has been hypothesized, but the fact that there aren’t many or any purely sign languages still around and other primates don’t show signs of using signs makes that seem like a reach, IMO
- davidmnoll 2y agoThis matches up well with my hypothesis that language developed as a mediator of institutional behavior and not the other way around. https://spacechimplife.com/institutional-code-and-human-behavior-1/ https://spacechimplife.com/institutional-code-and-human-beha...
- calepayson 2y agoIt all starts with imitation of some sufficient fidelity and generality that seeds a runaway evolutionary process. Language evolved to improve the fidelity of imitation much like how genes evolved pathways to minimize random mutations during copying. Once imitation gets good enough (general and accurate) were capable of spreading behaviors (phenotypes) without having to wait for folks to be born and grow up.
- Earw0rm 2y agoThat's culture, and it's known to exist among animals in a limited way. We don't really know what the upper bound for non humans is, because we don't know exactly what's being communicated by, for example, whale song.
- arlcode 2y agoI wonder whether we (as human) are merely the first species that managed to overcome initial barriers to developing culture and tech and thereby preventing any other species to do the same (for now). It feels like bipedalism, opposable thumbs and strong social behaviour and other factores were the perfect storm at the perfect time.
- Earw0rm 2y agoOther species have culture (behavioural traits/patterns and social organisation/cues that are communicated, not innately inherited via genes and development), and other species have tech (making intentional modifications to their environment, creating structures that better support their existence). What seems to be rare is the ability to use culture a medium to store and transmit tech.
- lordnacho 2y agoIt's that Noah Yuval Harari book, isn't it? What's separates humans is we can construct common fictions that we actually believe in, eg "my job is to maximize shareholder value" where both the corporation and the responsibilities towards it are made up but generally believed. There's of course a rather large elephant in this room, too, that decides a lot of things about our lives.
- Chris2048 2y agoOr cultural breakthroughs - either societies that started to value learning, or the advancement of such cultures?
- trescenzi 2y agoIt’s not necessarily scientifically accurate at all but this is the premise of Spaceship Earth, the ride in the big geodesic sphere, at EPCOT in Disney World. It’s an interesting take on history being accelerated by advances in communication technology, and not just language.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt doesn't even have to be verbal, but through showing; many animals teach each other using that, and that goes back much further than 300K years ago. But there must've been a change in early humans that made it more effective, make it go beyond basic skills. The other thing to consider is that they reached a point where they could gather food / survive more easily. If less time needs to be spent getting food - because they've reached a level of intelligence where they can, for example, store food for longer, or prepare / cook it for more efficient calorie gathering, or grow food, or share food / acquire more than an individual needs, etc - then there's more time left for cultural exchange, experimentation and play. That is, spend more time experimenting with a stone tool to make it better beyond the base necessity. disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't actually believe early humans spent that much time surviving, looking at apes they seem to spend a lot of time just sitting around.
- perlgeek 2y agoI've read a lot of hypotheses about what could have happened. Some say it was language. Others say it was the development of consciousness, which came with an improved theory of mind. Others say it was thinking in what-if/hypothetical scenarios. Maybe they all developed in lockstep, somehow.