Freethought & Rationalism Archive

scigirl · 08-29-2002, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vanderzyden:
And let us think of the inconceivable difficulties and the infinite amount of time that the first invention of languages must have cost.

I'm not so sure I buy this idea.

First of all, consider babies. They form a very rudimentary language. Heh, forget language, they have different types of cries for hunger, pain, etc. All they need is a laryngeal swelling, and a wet diaper, and voila you have a rudimentary shakespearean sonnet!

In a "primitive" or ancestral environment, I can easily see how a primitive form of verbal communication could have formed to do functions such as, "look out for the bear" or "I found food" or "Get your hands off my woman."

I'm sure our high reason and language evolved together. As we became more and more able to understand our world, our language had to 'evolve' along with it. Think about all the jargons there are today - terms like 'magnetic resonance imaging' or 'random access memory' were a necessary by-product of our reasoning skills. And our ability to invent such things as MRIs no doubt was influenced by our ability to communicate about the world.

It is an interesting question though - sort of like the chicken or the egg. My guess is reason came first, since our immediate cousins the chimps can clearly reason, but they can't hold much of a conversation (well, better than Kent Hovind, but still not that interesting nonetheless!

)

scigirl

Mr.Kitchen · 08-29-2002, 04:15 PM

Judging by the letters to the editors that some creationists write it seems clear to me that language developed before reason.

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mr.Kitchen ]

RBH · 08-29-2002, 04:39 PM

Van asked,

Quote:

Which came first, reason, which requires language, or language, upon which reason depends?

"Reason" is such a general term that it makes Van's question meaningless. In addition, the question contains two presuppositions that are questionable. They are embedded in the phrases "reason, which depends on language," and "language, upon which reason depends." As I read the literature of cognitive psychology, neither presupposition can be even weakly defended. Thus the question is too flawed to be worth addressing.

RBH

Vanderzyden · 08-29-2002, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Automaton:
Congratulations Vanderzyden, you have now degenerated yourself into the position of troll. You start a thread, the arguments in it get torn to shreds,

Don't flatter yourself that you are contributing to any of the refutation.

You may have notice that I don't respond directly to you. Perhaps now is a good time to indicate the reason. Your responses, like those of Vorkosigan (to name one of many), would merit a response if they weren't so foul, acidic, and disrespectful.

My day is wonderful! Yours?

Vanderzyden

scigirl · 08-29-2002, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vanderzyden:
You may have notice that I don't respond directly to you.

You may have noticed, you just did!

That was the funniest post I read all day - thank you Vander!

So. . . how about the other comments made here, that were not mean? Responses?

scigirl

Doubting Didymus · 08-29-2002, 05:37 PM

Quote:

You may have notice that I don't respond directly to you.

Who are you responding to?

Edit: Scigirl beat me to it.

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Doubting Didymus ]

Vanderzyden · 08-29-2002, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by scigirl:

I'm not so sure I buy this idea.

First of all, consider babies. They form a very rudimentary language.

scigirl

I like the baby example, since I have a newborn at home. How fascinating it is to watch! He learned to smile very early. But, who taught him? You see, my wife did not provide explicit instructions to my son on as to what facial expressions comprise a smile. Also, he does not know what a smile is for. Furthermore, he smiles in response to our smiles. How does this happen?

Related interesting questions: Do chimps smile, or do they merely draw their lips back over their mouth? Do they smile at each other? etc. etc.

Quote:

Originally posted by scigirl:

It is an interesting question though - sort of like the chicken or the egg. My guess is reason came first, since our immediate cousins the chimps can clearly reason, but they can't hold much of a conversation (well, better than Kent Hovind, but still not that interesting nonetheless!

Could you provide an indication of what makes you think that chimps reason? By what method do they form a rationale? What faculties permit them to reason, and what do they think about?

Incidentally, I will respond to your recent post in the "challenge" thread soon. There is much more to discuss and clarify.

Vanderzyden

scigirl · 08-29-2002, 05:59 PM

Vanderzyden,

Chimps can learn and teach sign language. If this isn't "reasoning," than I guess we have different definitions of reason!

Congrats on the newborn. How is your son learning? Well that is a fascinating field. When I had access to the journals Science and Nature, I read lots of cool studies about how scientists are addressing that question. Plus the scientists got to play with babies all day, instead of test tubes. I was envious!

About the smile question. . .I found some abstracts on <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/" target="_blank">pubmed</a>.

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=535437 &dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">Signal functions of infant facial expression and gaze direction during mother-infant face-to-face play.</a>

Quote:

Recent studies of adult-infant interaction suggest that adults modify their behavior in order to change or maintain an infant's state of arousal. We pursued this question by asking whether mothers modify their actions in response to infant facial expression or gaze direction. Subjects were 7 mother-infant (4--8 month old) pairs in which mothers were instructed to bet their babies to smile. From these filmed interactions the infant's mouth, gaze, and head direction were coded, and the mother's movements were coded as single acts or bouts. Results of an exploratory analysis indicate that, when trying to get a baby to smile using tactile and kinesthetic stimulation, mothers tend to respond to negative changes of affect and attention by changing the content of their actions, taking a long pause, or decreasing the number of acts in a bout.

Here's an interesting chimp study:

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=121500 35&dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">An infant chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) follows human gaze.</a>

Quote:

The ability of non-human primates to follow the gaze of other individuals has recently received much attention in comparative cognition. The aim of the present study was to investigate the emergence of this ability in a chimpanzee infant. The infant was trained to look at one of two objects, which an experimenter indicated by one of four different cue conditions: (1) tapping on the target object with a finger; (2) pointing to the target object with a finger; (3) gazing at the target object with head orientation; or (4) glancing at the target object without head orientation. The subject was given food rewards independently of its responses under the first three conditions, so that its responses to the objects were not influenced by the rewards. The glancing condition was tested occasionally, without any reinforcement. By the age of 13 months, the subject showed reliable following responses to the object that was indicated by the various cues, including glancing alone. Furthermore, additional tests clearly showed that the subject's performance was controlled by the "social" properties of the experimenter-given cues but not by the non-social, local-enhancing peripheral properties.

well gotta go back to studying,

scigirl

RufusAtticus · 08-29-2002, 06:58 PM

Vander,

Actually has a point here. Last time I looked, it was still up in the air whether language evolved for communication or reason. Most of the people in the field would argue that language exists for communication, but there is a slowly declining but still strong minority that see communication as simply a by product of reasoning. The question really isn't about language as a whole, but about a specific parts of it. Mainly the rules involved in grammar and syntax.

So to answer, Vander's question. We don't know yet, which came first human-specific language or human-specific reason. We do know that some form of reasoning preceeds language because many of our primate relitives show reasoning. But then agains, some forms of communication preceeds reasoning. However, neither senario defies evolutionary explainations.

In my view, the situation is a complex one involving gradual advancement and positive feedback.

ksagnostic · 08-29-2002, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Related interesting questions: Do chimps smile, or do they merely draw their lips back over their mouth? Do they smile at each other? etc. etc.

Yes, chimpanzees smile. They also laugh.

08-29-2002, 04:15 PM	#12
Mr.Kitchen Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Oxford, Mississippi Posts: 172	Judging by the letters to the editors that some creationists write it seems clear to me that language developed before reason. [ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mr.Kitchen ]</p>

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08-29-2002, 06:58 PM	#19
RufusAtticus Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: NCSU Posts: 5,853	Vander, Actually has a point here. Last time I looked, it was still up in the air whether language evolved for communication or reason. Most of the people in the field would argue that language exists for communication, but there is a slowly declining but still strong minority that see communication as simply a by product of reasoning. The question really isn't about language as a whole, but about a specific parts of it. Mainly the rules involved in grammar and syntax. So to answer, Vander's question. We don't know yet, which came first human-specific language or human-specific reason. We do know that some form of reasoning preceeds language because many of our primate relitives show reasoning. But then agains, some forms of communication preceeds reasoning. However, neither senario defies evolutionary explainations. In my view, the situation is a complex one involving gradual advancement and positive feedback.

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