The PUA Theory of the Origin of Language
A major (the major?) medium of evolution of brains is the creation of random connections between brain areas.
The best explanation of a cognitive evolution therefore involves a single such connection.
Language was kickstarted by a single such connection: from the brain's central processing *back* to the auditory processing pathway.
Humanoid animals could therefore "speak" to themselves prior to language.
This lead to a dramatic increase in what could be communicated, in a middle stage before universal language arose.
This increase of communicative scope included the ability to manipulate others, to make them do what they otherwise wouldn't.
This manipulative ability included manipulating a female into having sex.
Once this got a foot in the door, there was an explosion of selection for vocal ability.
This was multiplied in the way of runaway sexual selection, when females "figured out" that high verbal ability correlated with reproductive success.
Brains quickly started bursting hips wide open, and reached metabolic limits (brains consume ~25% of the bodies oxygen, at 2% of the mass). Very soon, in evolutionary time, the apes went from picking each other's lice to telling stories around the campfire, so impressively, so eloquently, to impress the girl.
Comments (9)
I'm surprised this part is puzzling, since it is such an intimate part of human experience. The connection enables us to "play sounds in our heads". That we "play" sounds indicates they originate in central processing. That we play "sounds" indicates that they partake of the same neural machinery external sounds do.
Try the following exercises, which test the strength of the different perceptual feedback loops of this kind. I don't claim my results are universal, so ymmv.
Imagine the sound of wind chimes.
Easy. I can do this with seeming perfect fidelity.
Imagine a rose
A wispy, unstable thing. I'm sure many can do better than me here.
Imagine the taste of mint
I immediately visualize a sprig of mint. I'm not sure I can do this at all.
Imagine the smell of coffee
I visualize a cup of coffee. Not sure I can do this either
Imagine the feel of sandpaper
I visualize the sandpaper, in one of those tools. This one seems otherwise inconceivable.
According to my theory it is no accident that the auditory feedback loop is by far the most developed.
Prior to language I would call these proto-thoughts. Strings of the noises that the animal makes in the world, noises which have innate, instictive meaning, played in the head. My intuition tells me that this ability enabled a greater communicative complexity, without yet arriving at language. Via rumination, play with onself and others, and expanded cultural transmission. But I haven't worked out the details.
Okay sure so we've got the ability to play sounds just like we're hearing them. How does this lead to language acquisition? It seems like there are many possible forms of language, but that this neurological development inclined us towards a verbal form, though it hardly explains the emergence of language itself (it might be a necessary condition for a certain form of language). I'm not ruling out a deeper connection... your second post indicates that this is where you are focusing now. If I think of anything further useful to contribute I'll post.
I enjoyed your mental exercises. I think I can do pretty well in simulating visual images, tastes and textures. I've never been good with smells.
I think I have a comprehensive theory of how human language was naturally selected, but rather than try to summarize in a brief post, I'll provide links to a couple chapters I wrote on the subject, located at philosophyofhumanism.com. This will give some good insight into how language evolved if you want to trouble reading it.
Phylogenetic Factors and Evolutionary Origins of Humanity's Language and Conception
The Evolution from Precivilized to Civilized Human Conception
I don't understand your objection that this development inclines us towards a verbal firm of language. All natural language is verbal. If the visual pathway has developed first we might all be signing.
We know we can think, and we know we have verbal language. I think the strength of my theory is that thinking is actually the simple part and so came first, and it plausibly suggests how language arose subsequent to thinking.
Ok I'm starting to see the idea more clearly now. So is the thought that the crucial auditory simulations that this neurological development facilitated were simulations of the organism's own vocalisations? Prior to language, these vocalisations would have been, I guess, various emotive vocalisations. I'm no anthropologist or primatologist, so I can only consult my cartoonish intuition about what these might have been like - an intuition tutored by my culture in various peculiar (non-universal) ways, no doubt. I am thinking of: gasping when surprised, yelling or roaring when angry, crying and whimpering sounds when sad, sighing when contented, laughing sounds when amused, moaning when experiencing pleasure, and so forth.
Then is the idea that we use these resources to develop a proto-language - that these subvocalisations (auditory simulations of vocalisations) begin to increase in complexity and eventually stand as 'signs' with something like semantic content which we can manipulate into strings (sentences)? This makes it sounds like a private language. But I don't think that's what you have in mind, is it? The development of this increasingly complex subvocalisation must be informed by social and cooperative processes, as everyone is going through the same developmental process.
The next part of your theory is that the increasing complexity eventually leading to full-blown language is fuelled by sexual selection. Maybe that's true. I don't know.
I'd still like to hear more about what advantage the auditory connection (auditory simulation ability) conferred, if any. Is it to do with increasing the richness of our imaginative capacities, and hence improving our learning from the past and planning for the future? Of course, it may have been due to other evolutionary processes, but we all like an explanation in terms of adaptation.
Right
Quoting Welkin Rogue
If you think about it, many modern words which can stand alone as a sentence could have served as primitive vocalizations: hmm. wow! huh. huh? awwww. yes! no!
Quoting Welkin Rogue
Right. Before this neuroevolutionary event, there was only public "language". After it, there is public and private "language", each informing and contributing to the other, in a cycle. Individual innovations could e transmitted to the group, who would transmit their collective innovations to other groups, and to the next generation. I believe the expressive limit of prelinguistic vocalizations would be quickly reached.
Quoting Welkin Rogue
I think the key immediate benefit is improved general cognition, without spending too much neurally. Something like what we do with the visual feedback loop. At least for me, the visual loop is not nearly as developed as the auditory. It is non-linguistic. And yet, it is indispensable for thinking, if it were to disappear (as it does sometimes when I am under a lot of stress) I would be mentally crippled.
And even though I am linguistic and so I predominantly use the auditory loop for saying words to myself, I sometimes use it to think in other ways, for instance musically. Sometimes music will accompany my visual thinking, in such a way that the "logic" of the music is somehow analogous to the logic of the problem. There is more utility to playing sounds to yourself than words.
This advantage gives the trait breathing room before the point is reached when a female be seduced with savvy vocalizations. As soon as this is possible, vocal flexibility, linguistic ability, and general brain power along with it, explode like an atom bomb.