This is not an easy book, but there are fascinating insights throughout which give one pause to think, and which begin to make things about human evolution, the human brain, and speech which were totally incomprehensible (at least) to me----logical and understandable.

If someone can find an address for me I'll write the author, Terrence W. Deacon, and ask him if he would be interested in answering any questions we might have or even in following our discussion and makeing comments.

We already have four of the Book Club's most perceptive and intellectual readers who've expressed interest in this one, and I hope that the challenge of the subject will stimulate our other superior (Yes that means YOU) readers to join in.

Best

LJ

LJ: I've scanned this book from cover to cover. Not sure that it needs reading word by word, maybe outlining is enough. It seems to be on a par with an advanced college text, although the language does not obscure the message (as so many college texts do). The study of the basic premise, why only homo sapiens sapiens developed language, is provacative. I am curious to see if anyone else has read it? Or intends to?

Jackie, You're sharper than am I. I had to read it all and suspect I will have to re-read it as we discuss.

Katie Jaques, Ros Stemple and Richard Landau all expressed interest in it. We will have to try to lure Ginny in from all those fictional books she's been reading.

Best

LJ

LJ: I am no sharper, but apparently I have less time. However, I have revised my plan for reading this book. This man can write! I dipped into the book, where Deacon is analyzing the brain size/weight ratio. It was fifty pages later when I came up for air. I may not have needed to know, or wanted to know, as much as he told me, but I am so glad I read through it. This will be fun. If he can make these physiological details so interesting, I can't wait for language development. What a great pick you made. Thanks, LJ.

Will those who will participate in this discussion sign in? I am behind in my reading - this book is fascinating, but I've been slow to start. If there are fewer than three of us, what do we do?

As an aside, did anyone see the report about monkeys apparently have the ability to count? The researchers stated that counting is a solitary skill which has applications for survival; language, they noted, is social. I read a review of a book I wanted to read, but have lost track of. The thesis was that development of counting lead to development of measurement (size of parcels of land, quantity of crops harvested, taxes owed to central government, etc.) and that lead to civilization.

JACKIE, There are at least two of us. Katie Jakes, Richard Landau and Ros. Stemple all expressed interest as well.

Keep calm.

I've discussed whole books on occasion when almost nobody showed up. Its a great way to learn a lot about a book.

Best

LJ

I shal be introducing this book on Snday, November 1. Computer folk, especially programmers, should find much of interest in this wide ranging treatise. I will pick out some sample passages.

I'm chafing at the bit. Have had this book uppermost in my mind for two months.

Best

LJ

We are offering a feast of selections this Thanksgiving it seems, so if you don't like carrots, you can eat peas. Pumpkin pie or Mincemeat?

Jackie, I saw those monkeys on TV - can't remember which show - a news program? They were counting by hitting buttons, but can't remember exactly what motivated them - was it food?

Anyway, if no one shows up here, come on down (about 2 steps I think) and read "The Other Side of the River" with me. No one may show up there either, but that's O.K. We offered it! Then we'll both just go up a couple of steps and buy a house in Italy with Ginny!

And once inawhile read and post another tidbit about the Supreme Court?

Jackie, I've read the first 40-some pages and understand what you said about the temptation to skip. I think it might be the closely printed pages and the relative scarcity of bold-face subheads and other "organizing features." At least that's why it's proving to be unsuitable for waiting-room reading, but maybe if I carried a notebook and several bookmarks....(Did you feel as if there should be textbook "thought questions" at the end of each chapter?)

Deacon's writing style is anything but dull. Also, I noticed that he apparently differs from the theories of Stephen Pinker, author of the next book coming up. In addition there's so much current interest in just how the brain works -- like today's press releases about the discovery that it does have the capacity for neuron regeneration -- that we should regard ourselves as on the cutting edge, so to speak.

Good luck as you prepare to help us become enlightened.

Ros

Ros: The appearance of a page, solid type from top to bottom, can be off-putting. I began this book by outlining each chapter, and that was the best way to analyze it, for me. But my time is so limited, that outlining was a luxury I had to do without. The news about neuron regeneration is tantalizing, to say the least. The local press had a brief synopsis. I shall need to look at this in more depth; there are more questions, raised by a "new" discovery, than answers. I have not started Pinker's book yet. How do the two men differ?

Ella: Forgive me, I don't know what River is about. Dites moi? Also, I'm ready to live in Tuscany. Probably all the great places in Provence are already gone.

LJ: You are the greatest cheering section. Thanks for all your support. I love SeniorNet folks!

Ella: "Pour qua" I'd quote more, but neither speak nor write French. Just know it as that delightful ditty from "South Pacific"

All: Note that part 1 is summarized in one paragraph on Page 301.

Admittedly, at times the text is a bit verbose, but that's appropriate to the subject-----Language.

I have several general opening comments: 1. If some of the phraseology is pregnant with meaning, then this book is a case of multiple births.

2. If you feel a bit "Put off" or discouraged at first, keep plugging. It realy begins to take off in part one, section 4, but you'll need that early groundwork as you progress.

3.When you get to part One, section 3, It might help to peruse summaries on pages 378, 397, 402, and 429.

This guy Deacon is a very complex thinker, and his literary eloquence is clearly apace of his reasoning.

There have been a few things over the past six decades which I keep returning to, to re-learn, revise definitions of, correct my understanding of, study more intensely the true meaning of, etc. These include: A. "Ideas of reference", B. "Process Thinking", C. "Gnosticism", and now D. "Symbols, Indexes and Icons.

Best

LJ

I'm struggling with the hierarchy of the Icon, Index and Symbol. Linearly, they seem straight forward as concepts. But when he expands them into multi dimensions...

Some random thoughts: One begins to have a glimmer of the problems involved in developing Artificial Intelligence. To envision neurons and their connections is one thing. Another to explain non-similarity as a step in the recognition of an icon. (Bark, not-bark.)

The use of the word "symbol" requires me to switch some mental gears. Symbolic Logic was nothing like this.

NPR had an interview with a physician who extrapolated from the decline of worship of the Goddess, and iconic writing, to the development of the alphabet, which he pairs with male gods and war.

This book may take a very long time, but it seems to be right on the cutting edge.

Jackie, You are right, and we are in no hurry.

Although there are many valid and interesting points made early on inthe text, one of those which seem most important is this "The difficulty of the language origins question is not to be blamed on what we don't know but rather on what we think we....know"

The paradox explored in chapter one, i.e. does language originate "Inside" (Mentalese) or "Outside" (Simple associations) The old Nature/Nurture dichotomy. Of course there is much more to communication than just language ( And,. it seems to me that some of these might be considered the "Simple Languages" referred to later)

I was surprised that referring to the "Hopeful Monster" theory and a so called "Universal Grammar" and the refutation of the idea of a "Language Organ" the lack of such universality was not argued using African languages as a model.

Although it's not a significant aspect of language itself, African origins might be presumed and as an example, Nigerian dialects essentially seem to have no counterparts in Western language syntax.

The Author notes that when the issue of complexity itself is eliminated from the issue of language and non-language communication the one remaining difference is in "Word meaning and reference"

He goes on to outline three tasks of the book. 1. Define the difference between Human "Symbolic Reference" and "Non-Symbolic Reference. 2. Explain why comprehension of Human Symbolic reference is so difficult for all others. and 3. Explain how this difficulty is overcome by Humans

THE KEY SENTENCE TO CHAPTER ONE is probably "....supports for language complexity must have been consequences rather than causes.....of language evolution"

Best

LJ

JACKIE, As you pointed ou in the begining, We'll have no trouble with the authors concepts and many of their implications, but whether we'll have as firm a grip on his comprehension of symbolic reference and all it's implicatiopns as does the author, is another question entirely.

The conclusion of chapter 2 (which, along with chapter 1, is preamble to chapter 3) states: When we interpret the meaning and reference of a word or sentence, we produce something more than what a parrot produces when it requests a cracker or what a dog produces when it interprets a command. This "Something more" is what constitutes our symbolic competance.

To get to this point, first we see concepts like "Pre-maladaptation" Counter-intuitive thinking, and (A new word for me whose "Symbolic Reference is still cooking in the kitchen of my mind) "Semiotic" organization.

We realize the interdigitation of verbal with non-verbal communication and as we go we (At least I) begin to wonder about related problems like: Written vs. Verbal communication. After all the latter may go back 200,000 years but the former probably dates back only 6,000 years. What are the implications here for more recent evolution of communication.

More later

Best

LJ

Jackie, You are well into chapter three (The most difficult chapter in the book for me) so today I'll try to "Catch up"

Going on with "Involuntary" and "Contagious" communication Calls and Laughter), we have the "Problem" of reference.

Signifiers and signified; symbols and icons, sense (in the head) and reference (in the world). And "Reference" is created by some response (to word, hieroglyphic, gesture, etc.). Differences in response vary with interpretants such as visual images (probably the most important one), definitions, visceral feelings, past experiences, elicitations of other words, etc.

BUT for "Symbolic Reference" to the author, one must add perceptive comprehension such as an ability to recognize, use, manipulate and intrinsically perceive all the ramifications and variations of a thing. (here the example of a formula which when fully comprehended can by utilized in multiple settings, varied circumstances and what I'd call "Jump-shifts" in thinking e.g. the product of the means equals the product of the extremes)

The next three steps were as much as I could comprehend at one sitting: A. I liked it at the point where my perceptions suggested multiformed levels of "Symbolic Reference" and I thought I could trust all those words to mean what I thought they meant. Then I faund "Iconic resemblance is not based on some prior ground of physical similarity, but in that aspect of the interpretation process that does not differ from some other interpretave process" (Remember: Icons are mediated by similarity between signs and indexes and bear resemblance)(Indexes are mediated by similarity between signs and objects, and show linkages while symbols are mediated by formal or agreed links and are the resulst of convention or agreement)

B. I'm not sure that delving into "Re-Cognition" and "Re-Presentation to learn that icons arise from a failure to produce critical indexes to distinguish things, that I'll become more adept as a "Semiotician" (I found that word in only one of five dictionaries, but "Semiotic" was in two of the five. The two definitions were similar but not identical)

3. Next I had to meditate upon the idea that "Icons and indexes are not merely perception and learning, (but) refer to the inferential or predictive powers that are implicit in these neural processes"......."This "Mental representation reduces to inferential communication"

I have one question: To what extent is the development of "Symbolic Reference" a measure of intelligence?

Best

LJ

LJ and Jackie, we all seem to be wondering about these definitions that shift like water. "Icon" is one of those words that have been co-opted by the media and used to mean half a dozen things not related to "semiology" (ahem!). I'm finding that the margins of this paperback are too narrow to permit really comfortable note-taking. Otherwise the only difficulty about the book is its deceptively readable style, which takes me past an important point and then forces me to say "Huh?" and back up to find out what he was really saying.

Deacon seems to have made a couple of references to "prostheses." Is he actually referring to his own physical condition or merely using the word in a broader sense as referring to computers which enhance the power of the human hand? Have I missed something?

LJ, your thought-question is a wow. I'm nowhere near ready to venture an opinion.

Ros

Ros, Its so good to know you're with us. After chapter three it gets easier. I promise. But, although I've been through the book "word for word", I've got to review a second time, think about it overnight, re-review in the morning, and THEN post. Its either "Part-time Alzheimers" or its a tough book to fully comprehend. Maybe I should write the author a letter? Or perhaps Jackie would like to?

Best

LJ

After struggling and scribbling my way through Chapter 3, I began to hunt for some point in the book that might correspond to the segments that graduate students were always told to read first before tackling any higher-level expository materials: abstract, summary, and conclusions. I began with Chapter 12, "Symbolic Origins," and read rapidly from there to the end. I feel better now that I have some glimmering of where Deacon was headed. Now I'm ready to go back and do more underlining and marginal scribbling.

At present I've had to abandon my early-morning treadmill and stationary bike routine, so between now and Thanksgiving I can use the quiet time from 5:45 to 7:30 for serious reading, no radio, no television, nobody else awake. (I'm even considering rewarding myself with a cup of real coffee.) And maybe I can remember where I "filed" those handy layered transparencies that show all the brain areas, function, location, etc. Yes, I know they're on the internet, but I want them in my hand.

All those little diagrams and pictures are fascinating, aren't they?

LJ, probably much of the material in this book is old stuff to you, but it seems to me that I must regard it as a textbook, albeit a fascinatingly written one, and tackle it accordingly. Apropos of Deacon's writing style, I have found myself so tangled up in some of his breathless nonstop sentences that I had to go back, find the simple subject and circle it, and then find the simple predicate and double-underline it, before I could really make sense of all those clauses and phrases he tacks on. Just another "metacognitive" technique for making sense out of tough stuff.

Ros

Ros, I suspect we're all in the same boat. True the neuroscience material is iceing on the cake for me as it is my field of interest, but I am no more a semioticist (how do you like that one?) than are you and Jackie. As I work with the latter part of Chapter three, two things begin the resolution. FIRST he says that semanticists and semioticists are "Far from a satisfactory account...of the logic of this network of symbol-symbol relationships.......reflected in the patterns of symbol-symbol combinations."

Second, In my search for Deacon's address I came across enough related sites to realize that we've got about as good a grasp of this stuff as do the experts, but they can talk about it with a facility that comes only from long use and remarkable ease of comprehension. I feel like coming up for ait when the scuba tanks are empty and you're 80 feet down, i.e I can see through these last pages and know what I'm going to post tomorrow.

Best

LJ

P.S. It makes one feel younger to come up against a REAL challenge, doesn't it?

About the best I'm going to be able to do to tie up chapter three (reviewing my previous posts) is to add that Symbols refer to each other and by doing so refer to things in the world. They become determinitives for modifying referential functions.

"Symbolic reference emerges from a ground of non-symbolic referential functions in different combinations", all of which combine in an organizational pattern of local closed groups of mappings from symbol to symbol from which higher order systems of association, of increasingly complex systems are developed.

"Because Symbolic Reference is inherantly systemic, there can be no symbolization without systematic relationships. Thus syntactic structure is an integral feature of symbolic reference, not something added and separate"

We are now approaching the question of what it is about human brains that makes the symbolic re-codeing step easy for humans compared to all other species.

Ros, I'd like to make sure that you and Jackie are ready to go on before I post on chapter four.

Best

LJ

Well, all I can say is, I'm grateful that the discussion I'm "Leading" is going so well. Thanks, folks. I feel that this is a truly synergistic endeavor for me. Ros and LJ, you are adding so much to my enjoyment and my understanding of this book.

My reading time is limited, and this material is too dense for me to tackle when I come home from work with a brain composed of lumpy cottage cheese. So weekends are my stocking up time. Silly me, I thought this might be like writing briefs for law school. HA! and HA again. Still, I have set myself the challenge of conquering this material and will die trying.

Forgive my ignorance, LJ, but what is your field? Ros speaks of this being "old stuff" to you. Biology? Psychology? Psycho-biology?

I had an attack of whimsey while groping my way through Deacon's prose: Does what he's saying negate the Raised by Wolves stories? Maybe I will be able to answer my question by the time I get to the end.

I must admit that the part about Elman's neural nets left me standing on the runway with my suitcase in my hand. Couldn't figure it out nohow; but I did glean from this chapter what seem to be a couple of simple and understandable ideas: (1)Kids learn language readily when young because they don't know enough to be distracted by slight complications and contradictions. (2) Language evolved in a form that could be learned by the young. It wasn't the other way around, and there's no "innate" hard-wired language ability. Any comments? I was trained in, and I actually taught to undergraduate Education students, the "top-down" theory of language development and reading development, so that part felt fairly comfortable.

From this chapter it seems to me that the "feral" child presumably reared by wolves will have a lot of trouble with human language. Wonder how Mowgli managed so well.

Hearing some Arab-Israeli sound bytes today brought to my mind the thought that all languages seem to employ similar kinds of pitch, stress, and intonation -- that is, the "melody" of speech -- when delivering comparable material. The speaker was saying, I think in Arabic, "IF such and such, THEN such and such" - just as we would have sung it in English.

Ros

Ros: Thans to you and LJ, this discussion is marching along. I am still playing "Catch-up". Just when I plan to race along, Deacon springs sentences on us that, as you say, leave us on the landing strip with our suitcases in our hands.

I find myself musing on how Deacon could "mentate" all this. The workings of his mind are awe-full. As with most advances, I guess, the leaps seem so logical and obvious, we wonder why it took us so long to see. Icon, index, symbol. These chapters need many re-readings. When it get to the physiological stuff, I seem to be able to fly though that. Later this week I hope to post a sort of flow chart of the book. I seem to think in tables and charts, so it will help me navigate. It always helps me, also, to know at the beginning where I will end up. Lots of byways between here and there.

Jackie, I have to smile at myself as I note the numerous desperate devices I'm using to make sense out of those dense paragraphs, those convoluted sentences. I circle, I underline, I make wavy lines in the margin, and today I began using Deacon's text to formulate questions at the top of each page. ("Does brain size relate to intelligence? If so, how?" "Why doesn't the Innate Language theory really work?") But as LJ has pointed out, it makes one feel young(er) to be struggling with material that is challenging, and fascinating, and difficult but not impenetrable. I zoomed through Chapter Four and went on to the Brain section, got a few pages into it this morning while waiting for an ultrasound, and it looks like fun. (Hahahahaha, as Ginny would say.)

Ros

Jackie.

A chart of the book will be fascinating, but we'll all be "Chomping at the bit to get to the last part (III) when we see it.

ROS That was a clear and concise summary of chapter four.

I hope both of you (And any other brave soul who chooses to take on this project) will add personal observations and comments as we go.

Regarding the melody of speech, I had an experience in Barbados with a store manager and a native Montserratian both of whom were born in the Islands and were obviously as black as I am, obviously a white American who happens to speak the English dialect. The Bajun "Sings" more than the Montserratian and the Montserratian has a bit of an Irish lilt. THe manager told my friend to take his backpack up to the front of the store and leave it till we checked out. Peter (my friend) did not understand so I told him "Peto, take yo pok up front an lef em" which he did. The manager looked at ME and said "Oh, HE'S not Bajun"

I guess its all in the melody.

Similarly, when Deacon discusses Creole and Pidgins, I was reminded of "Mafue" another native, when describing my briefcase in the next room, he said "De blok sump'n on de brown sum'n" And my twins when starting speech therapy and we first began to understand "Twin Talk" would say things like "Whobody gonna stay with we"

I liked the way Deacon referred to Chomsky's Universal Grammar as conundrum that inverts cause and effect and likens language to an intuitave, user-friendly computer interface.

Language rules are acquired but not universal. e.g. Tho I don't speak or comprehend either of the Nigerian dialects, I've discussed them with quite a few very bright students and although there may be some universals, they are based on anatomy and physiology (We even have trouble with some of these because of unfamiliarity with certain double consonant sounds like "NG", but we learn to say them easily).Otherwise there are virtually no English equivalants to the Nigerian, at least the Ibo dialect

A few minor points and I'll quit for tonight. 1. Language evolves and shapeing of an operant behavior has to have a behavior to be shaped>

2.Bilingual people have sepatrate brain centers for each of their languages.

More tomorrow.

Best

LJ

That bit about bi-linguals and their separate brain centers, Deacon could use the computer analog again. Each bit of data occupies a separate place on your hard drive. So your brain needs to keep the French bits separate from the Latin bits, much less those Ibo bits! Chapter four is much nicer than chapter three. Chomsky is almost God, so the challenge must be creating quakes. I, of course, was quite taken with the Macintosh references, having owned Macs for 12 years. By the way, has anyone read New Scientist? Heard the Silicon Valley bureau chief interviewed last night on local NPR. The November 4 issue is all Silicon Valley. The magazine is written for scientists to keep up with the other sciences, but is written for intelligent lay people also. Main offices are in London, bureaus in Melbourne, Sydney, Washington, now San Francisco, and one in Belgium. More goodies to read.

Gee, I remember the "Old Days" when American patriotism was almost as intense as MacIntosh loyalty is today.

Consider the comment on P124 "Powerful arguement for a specialized learning device (Reflexive?)...during a critical period of children's development.....obvious counterpart of songbirds instinct"

Consider this in the light of "Subcortical" or automatic expletive speech in people otherwise with global aphasia.... Consider also the infant's ability to mimic any sound an adult can make, while a seven yerar old couldn't roll an "R" for dear life..... Also consider the infant's ability to swim under water, an art that must be relearned in the older child (allbeit, more easily if the child swam as an infant). Even Kanzai learned as an infant the speech games that were insurmountably difficult for the adults. Here an "....Ape, whose ancestors never spoke (and who himself can't speak) demonstrates a critical period of language learning"

I think the problem of nets might best be visualized by thinking about dendrites EACH with literally thousands on endings to synapse with other neurones.. This is essentially mostly a human brain function which a computer has to mimic for artificial intelligence just to begin to approach reality.

More tomorrow

Best

LJ

OH NO!! Stop the presses, ROSLYN STEMPEL is going "hahahahah"??

hahahahah

Ginny

Browsing the New postings on Librarians Index to the Internet and Lo! Look what I found: The MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences - http://mitpress.mit.edu/MITECS/ . LJ: Could you check it out for us? Probably too technical for me, but sounds really exciting. I've used MIT's Mac software archives for years, great shareware and freeware. Games, FileMaker Pro stuff, clipart, fonts, sounds, on and on. Click and Clack both graduated from MIT. One, ONE, person I went to school with went to MIT. My son also had a classmate who went there. Of course, CalTech is better.

Jackie, your link sounds enticing and worth checking out if only to gasp and admire at.

Ginny, sorry if I've encroached on one of your trademarks, but it simply sprang to my finger-ends as I was trying to express concisely the pleasure of attempting to regenerate one's atrophied brain cells. No, it probably didn't sound natural coming from me, did it? At any rate, we're having some kind of fun, but you can see us all struggling with the temptation to make outlines and charts.

Ros

Jackie, I've bookmarked it and will subscribe and delve into it as soon as I can. Thanks

Right now, regarding the idea of Artificial Intelligence Deacon says that if a fully trained "Net" (theoretical) embodying grammer and syntax could do as well as a person, it would show that there are sufficient statistical relationships between word strings and structure to allow recovery of grammatical regularities which could be "Learned" in some form without rule based error correction.

The two important points here are that "Learnability" depends upon a match between the learning algorhythm and the structure of the problem, and enough "Noise" needs be in thenet to prevent premature convergence.

Finally and most importantly: We need to think of Human Brain Evolution in terms of changes that produced biases in how we learn, and these must be species specific.

Please let me know if youall are ready to move on to part two- chapter 5. I seem to be a bit slower than youall.

Best

LJ

LJ: Hahahaha! (To quote a famous SeniorNet guru.) Yes, LJ, you are holding us back, get a move on! Seriously, We are getting to a part of the book which is much easier reading, as you promised. I will be happy to discuss the brain. I'm glad that Deacon says we are not Chihuahuas. But, if we should weigh 1000 lbs, does that mean we are all underweight? That would be a first for me. (As you can see, I can take only so much seriousness before I stoop to levity.)

There it is again!! I can see that my influence is corrupting you all! Next Roslyn will use the exclamation mark, and then I really WILL have to sit down for a bit!

It's nice to know one has so much POWER!! hahahahahhaha

Signed,

Hahahahahahhaah

JACKIE and ROS, I haven't tried to outline or chart the book, but it does seem to dissolve into the three major portions characterized by understanding the "Problem" i.e. fefinition of whats going on in "Speech" in the first part; A whole lot of fascinating and informative as well as useful material about the Anatomy, Physiology and Phylogeny of the problem in part two; and in part three, the implications, conclusions and problems embodied in the whole subject (Including the deity and computers).

JACKIE, Feel free to "Lead out", or if you wish, either Ros or I will begin on chapter five.

Best

LJ

LJ: This group is well lead without my interference. Leading is a moot issue when 1) the group is so small, and there is room within this subject for us to go off on any tangent we are drawn to. Maybe you could comment on the recent article in the press about the profound effect of testestosterone and estrogen on the development of the brain in the fetus. More and more evidence is accumulating and the inevitable conclusion seems to be that men and women are truly different in the brain. Implications are only speculative, but what if is always fun to play, isn't it? Ros, I know from Poetry that you are a national treasure, but am interested in what you bring to this discussion besides that. (Whoops, nosiness stricks again.)

That's a good start!!!

These next two chapters lend themselves well to "Random" comment (Chaps five and six) especially chapter six which, although thorouge, seems a bit fragmented..

I didn't see the article in the paper (Lately, I've barely had time for the headlines), but I'v been very interested in the differences and similarities between the sexes. I think both are important to understanding.

Best

LJ

LJ, "fragmented" is a kind word for Chapter 6. How about splintered, shattered, and downright impossible? Maybe it was today's waiting-room conditions that made all that stuff about differential curves of fetal brain development and the cephalization-somatization ratio and the fact that we're not over-cephalized mammals but actually we're normal-brained somatic dwarves seem just a bit difficult. I think/I hope I got the general drift; do I really want to bother trying to understand the details?

Definitely going to slow down on this for the next few days and will try backing up to find out if chihuahas and chimp brains are more meaningful on a second pass.

Ros

I always feel like a somatic dwarf in a waiting room.

Ginny

Pardon me--may I interrupt? (Waving my hand here~~~~~)

I was away, and did not return home in time to join in the discussion on May it Please the Court, but had no problem following you since I read both MIPTCourt and CChambers. But THIS ONE...I am keeping up as you post, but it will not shock you to hear me say that I am completely lost. Therefore, my remarks may have nothing to do with anything------

LJ--you mentioned back in post #26 that language evolves and.......must have a behavior to be shaped. Also that bilingual people have separate brain centers for each of their languages.

I always heard that you could never master a language unless you learned to think in that language, which likely accounts for my never mastering another language. But I had an interesting thing happen to me a few years ago, and I thought I might share with you.

I had lived in the Far East for several years as an Air Force wife. After arriving on Okinawa, I tried to learn to speak their language (with only a little success). After returning to the States, I promptly forgot 95 percent of what little I had learned.

Several years later, still in the AF, we were off to Germany. This time, I told myself, I would study German BEFORE I arrived there. I bought the books, and tapes and started studying immediatly. I learned quite a lot before arriving in Wiesbaden. For the first trip in the city to shop....I got my books out, and practiced phrases, and knew exactly what to say when.

I swept grandly into a large Department Store, with my teenage daughter, practicing my German on her as we walked. I made my way to a counter, where a wonderful-looking sales lady waited to serve me. I proudly opened my mouth, and told her what I wanted. She looked at me like I was afflicted....or something...<gr>

My daughter gasped and nudged me and said: Mother???????

I knew in an instant, the words I spoke were not German....but Japanese. Words I had long ago forgotten. I had not learned to 'think' in either language, and had obviously opened the door to the wrong "brain center". I never acquired the key to either door. I have now forgotten what little I knew of both languages.

Sorry to interrupt.....

Sun

Sunknow, Thats not an interruption. Shall we call it a "Re-Joinder" (literally playing with the words and their symbolisms). As will become even more evident in this upcoming "Brace" of chapters so full of informative data yet, as has been noted, so splintered and fragmented, the inclusion of personal experiences and observations is the "Word" of the day.

Personally, I majored in German, had a few years of Latin, a semester of Greek, speak West Indian dialect, have sung in Italian and having taught foreign residents and in an International school can recall a smattering of unmentionable words in several other "Tongues". I acquired English by osmosis and deny knowing even ONE WORD of French (And I'd mis-pronounce that one)(If I knew it)

Best

LJ

Sunknow, your communication is wholly relevant because it touches on the mystery of how different languages are learned and where they are stored in the brain. I too have had the embarrassing experience of opening my mouth to speak French and having Spanish come out, and vice versa. Not that I was ever fluent in either, but I could usually (as you suggest) think my way through a few phrases that I thought I needed...but then wires got crossed somehow.

I've never been aware of automatic fluency in Yiddish, which was spoken in my early childhood because my grandmother never acquired English. I understood a fair amount, and in adulthood once in a blue moon actually seemed to dream in Yiddish. However, in my old age, when I'm with others who have a command of the language, I find my tongue producing it without thinking about it. The syntax is undoubtedly mixed up, and it comes out "in bunches" instead of in discrete words, but it's there, lodged deep in some dusty prefrontal lobe

Deacon asks us to confront the mystery of why humans alone, of all the mammals and all the primates, have the power of language. In the part we're struggling with right now he's presenting the idea that, yes, the human brain is relatively larger than other brains, but it's not because the brain is overgrown - it's because the body is undergrown! If we had bodies to match our brains, he says, we'd weigh a ton or two. Somewhere in the course of fetal development, says Deacon, the ratio of brain growth to body growth shifted from the normal 2:3 into a very topheavy ratio.

Deacon earlier used some interesting analyses of efforts to teach other primates how to use language. He derives some analogies from the difference in "learning" between baby chimps and adult chimps. Seems the babies learned as they watched the mother being taught, even though they weren't being directly trained themselves. Like humans, he suggests, for whom language learning in early childhood is simpler than in adulthood. He uses this as a springboard to theorize that there's no "innate universal grammar" hard-wired into human brains. Rather, our languages themselves evolved in such a way that they were easy for young children to learn.

I'm telling this clumsily, but I hoped to entice you to hunt for the book and join us. It's truly a voyage of discovery. Plenty of room in the boat for you!

Ros

Ros. there's a reflection on the large head to small body discussion which evens things out in adults. As I get the "Kernel" of these two chapters the ultimate conclusion is that Evolution made all primate brains relatively big but the Homo Sapiens brain evolved dramatically in the frontal lobes making room for the qualitive jump in connectivity that results in Different and New ways of thinking (At least including "Symbolic Reference"). As I recal, much will be discussed in the area of evolutionary pressures related to the above.

Best

LJ

There is an interesting transition relative to my last post in the last page of chap. 5 and the first page of chap 6. In chap six, when he starts with the "Dog" material he defines "Encephalization" but he uses the word at a critical point on the previous page when he points out that second order learning capacity correlates with brain size but not encephalization.

I'd like to add that some of my dogs have been smarter than others, but it wasn't related to size or sex. Of course, some breeds are better or more naturally inclined to expertise in various fields relating to characteristics of the breed.

I noticed on 162 the comment regarding the absolute increase in neuronal connections but decrease in proportion of connections to individual neurones. Although the point had been brushed upon earlier, very little was made of variable thresholds and varying frequency and intensity of stimulation as well as recruitment at the operant levels (End organd, nerve cells and intermediate connections). Thus one cell(?) (At least the axons and bodies of a specific neurone/nerve/identical path) can carry multiple types of input, e.g Pain, Hot, Cold and "Tickle" all traverse pain fibres which originate in pain sensitive end organs.

Best

LJ

Frequency of use of pathways is discussed briefly on 163 and in the sense of development has or will be mentioned elsewhere in terms of the liklihood of establishing pathways during embryonic development. This obviously can be tied to the ease of learning some things in infancy more easily than as the organism developes.

The comment that a wide range of both vertebrates and invertebtrates can learn on a rather sophistocated level might even be enlarged to vegetable species. e.g. Plants "Learn" to lean toward the sun.

An unusually straight forward statement on p169 re: brain size is: Primates...have larger brains than most mammals. Primate "Encehaloization" is about twice that of other mammals. Humans have three times as much brain as typical primates.

Best

LJ

I believe that we have a couple of late starters. Please jump in with your comments and questions, sunknow and Nellie. I, for one, can benefit by going over this stuff many times. Deancon's writing style is deceptively easy for me, I find myself zipping along, then have to back up and review. The part where he's talking about language having to pass through the constraints of a child's mind is very provacative to me. Babies and mothers, intimacy, murmurs and croonings. Right brain vs. left brain. Estrogen and language, linear thinking & testosterone...

What else sparks anyone's curiosity? If we have questions, I can try emailing Professor Deacon; he is listed at the Boston University website.

By all means Jackie, e-mail him. Ask if he'd be interested in commenting. Ask him to send a junior level "Fellow" to help clarify "Symbolic Learning" on the highest level.

Best

LJ

A key to the embryology/ Encephalization/ Adult Mammalian and Vertebrate brain size/ Frontal (Association) brain vs. "Visceral" -his word- size is to note that the newborn human infant IS a dwarf (i.e. huge head small body) but the proportions change with postnatal development.

The summation on 173 is helpful (and reiterative) i.e. "....yhe fossil record leading up to us suggests that there was an absolute increase - not decrease- of body size, with an even more extensive increase in brain size...."

The almost esoteric embrological material in chapter six is indeed fascinating and I suspect reflects the author's personal field of special interest here. Its well worth reading and contemplating, but the crux of the presentation is found on p184 with the statement that, "The cerebral cortex is roughly twice as big as predicted for many other forebrain structures, and three times as big as predicyed for the brainstem, spinal cord and the rest of the body"

Best

LJ

This is a fascinating book. But I'm not certain I can make any very intelligent comments on it. What has caught my interest are the remarks on the difficulty of languages; that the most brilliant person/scientist couldn't figure out the rules of grammar given just the language. And yet we all learned at least one language when we were very young. How can that be? How does a child learn a language? I think a child learns its native language through imitating its elders, that is the parents and older siblings if there are any. And it must not be forgotten that a child hears language from the moment it is born, and maybe even before it is born. I also think children "play" with language; which is why they often come up with odd sentence structures at times when they are first learning. And there are adults who "play" with language too; poets come to mind here.

An other thought on learning in general: when you think of it, all learning involves learning new languages. To learn mathematics you must learn the "language" of mathematics; to learn physics the language of physics; and so on; because every art, every craft, and every science has its own unique language.

But what is of real interest to me is where language came from, and why are there so many different languages.

Just a few of my thoughts...Nellie

Hi, Nellie: Welcome. Comparison with animals is inevitable; how do mothers communicate with their young? Do other primates croon and murmur? Does a mother cat purr to her young? Do they purr to her? I have a cat who has "imprinted" on my daughter. He follows her like a shadow. His meows are very expressive, i.e., we assign emotions to certain of his sounds. Words, not language, as Deacon notes. I cannot quite grasp this stuff; it floats right beyond my mental reach. How can there be humans without language? How did we become human, AND become, what was Deacon's word for users of language? I am wrestling with this, it is not yet mine.

NELLIE, Thanks for your post. I'd always considered learning speech to be a matter of imitating, but Deacon points out rather convincingly that without a controling "Mentalese" such learning at any age would be almost impossible.

I was especially intrigued by your comments on mathematics and language. I don't have answers, but have you noticed that most scholars are biased toward mathematics OR literate abilities. The equally endowed person is almost an exquisite rarity.

Along this line, as we keep in mind "Artificial Intelligence" If the computer is to approach the brain it will require a math co-processor of phenomenal capacity to calculate all of the probabilities which at this point in time we call "Intuition"

Keep posting. You are very stimulating.

Best

LJ

Jackie: I can't imagine a human being without picturing someone who uses language. Usually it is spoken language; but there can also be signed language; and we make extensive use of written language. I haven't read far enough in the book yet to determine if becoming human and using language came at the same time. I wonder where the need for language came from? Did language arise in humans for the same reason the "dance" did in bees? That is, to tell others where a source of food can be found?

Animals communicate with each other and with their young. We humans sometimes have trouble communicating with our pet animals. I had a male bichon that at age two thought he was going to be top dog of the house and spent a lot of the time growling at us. We tried the usual recommended remedies with no success. Then one day I was reading a book about how wolves communicated with each other; and it mentioned that when the Alpha male was challenged by a very low ranking member of the pack, he ignored it. So I did just that. Totally ignored the little white growling beast and it worked.

I was thinking last night about words and how even the simplest word can set off a cascade of associations and emotions.

LJ: I have noticed that too, that scholars either lean towards mathematics or sciences, or towards the arts, literary pursuits. I think mathematics must be one of the most symbolic languages; if not the most symbolic. Do you think more scholars lean towards the literary or arts than to the mathematical?

I'm not sure if they will ever make a computer or an AI program that could have the same intuition as the human brain.

I have read through all the brain development and growth and am eager to discover how language use shaped the human brain. The brain is altered by experience. long ago I read of experiments done with rats in which some were given an enriched environment and that those rats had bigger brains with more connections than the rats who did not have the good environment. But how was that change in the brain passed on to the offspring? I'm thinking more of the early language using humans. I guess the question is which came first, the big brain or language use?

I think this is enough for now...Nellie

Nellie, I think the book answers that question with much greater elegance and eloquence that I can muster, but it seems to have been a "Co-Evolution"

Sorry to be brief, but am working a lot right now. Will post in mire detail tomorrow night or Friday.

Best

LJ

Arrrgh! I'm stuck on that business of the genes and the segments and i keep reading it over and over. Starts to make sense, so I go to the next sentence, and realize it might as well be sanskrit. I won't quit, though. Maybe go a little insane, but who'd notice?

Nellie & LJ: Great to see you posting. I'll catch up. Will be spending some time at home, a silly medical thingie, so will maybe get over this place in the book soon.

Jackie, there's nothing like a "silly medical thing" to free us for some serious reading, eh?. I hope yours is truly trivial and just gives you an excuse to skip work and pamper yourself for a while.

I'm bogged down at the beginning of Ch. 8 and the discussion of "Hoover's brain," but after I've forced myself to defrost the freezer maybe I'll reward myself by sitting down again and tackling Deacon. (Is that what one might call Hobson's choice? Which would I rather skip or postpone? Don't ask.)

Ros

Ros: Very apt description of your choice there, but I would put defrosting the freezer above cleaning the oven, especially since my present oven is about 12 inches above the floor. Test results in two weeks or so; I am pampering myself to the max.

If we have sepcific questions for Professor Deacon, I will email them. Otherwise I could ask him to drop by and "hang" with us for a while? Maybe I can formulate an intelligent question when I've finished reading this darn albatross. I feel like Sisiphus. However it is always there in my brain, background and foreground. Processing. Turning things around to look at them from another angle. I'm still on chapter six, Ros.

ROS, Here I was, smugly waiting for everybody else to get ready for Chapter seven and YOU are in chapter EIGHT. I'll work on my post tonight and try to "Catch-Up" tomorrow.

JACKIE, "Peers" to me that this business of symbolic reference was first approached by the "Platonic Socrates" and has been around ever since. I might say that Deacon's description makes Plato both understandable and "Primitive" (Just a little advertisement for the "History of Western Philosophy" which starts about Dec. first)

Best LJ

Chapter seven is loaded with very interesting and at times, theoretical material on the embryology of the brain which contributes more to a comprehension of how natural selection and evolutionary change can easiuly occur.

After detailed analysis, he points out the single most marked and important brain change between Apes and Modern Man is in the prefrontal cortex or "Association connectivity"

To paraphrase: Brain wiring depends on the interactions of information and connections. So information analysis depends on the outcome of these connections. With greater amounts of "Association" bigger and more complex symbolic registers are developed, which ultimately "Drive" what we call thinking, and similarly, enable speech.

Chapter eight is essentially a discussion of speech which is independant of thought, i.e. the non-thinking or automatic brain.(Similar to what is commonly but probably erroniously called "Subcortical speech". I think that this discussion is for the purpose of cleaning and sharpening the up-coming chapters on "Cortical" or intelligent speech.

Please let me know when youall are ready for chapter nine.

Best

LJ

I've just started chapter 7 so bear with me. I want to see if I can find a copy of the book in a bookstore; it is frustrating not to be able to underline and annotate in the margins. But the library would frown on my doing so.

There is a nice little article in the November issue of Discover magazine called The Gift of Gab which fits right in with what we are discussion.

LJ: "speech which is independent of thought" Does that mean the same as "speaking without thinking first"? as many of us are apt to do. Or does it refer to the sounds made by animals as they communicate with each other?

Have an anectdote related to the brain to share. When I was in university, I volunteered for a small stipend to be a guinea pig to test out new EEG machines the hospital had just received. In the course of the testing I was asked to raise and lift my forefinger. Something about that action excited the technician running the tests because he went to get one of the professors/MDs, and there was lots more finger raising and toe wiggling. Then they checked all the contacts on my head, hooked me up to a different machine; more finger and toes moving; more people coming in. You gather that by now I'm becoming very curious as to what is going on; I wonder if they found some hidden brain tumor or something else scary. Finally a nice grey haired doctor sits me down at a desk piled high with EEG readouts and proceeds to show me what has them all so excited; it seems my brain is not putting out a signal when it should be. If I remember right it had something to do with the premotor cortex. The way he explained it, it is like the brain rehearses a movement before you actually make it. And for some odd reason my brain does not do that. Which probably explains why I am one of the most unhandy persons around LOL.

Nellie

NELLIE, Yes the animal speech and Alarm calls fall into that category as well as the expletives some people suffering from profound aphasia may utter in absolute frustration. Imagine if you will, a stroke victim, unable to utter a single comprehensible word, who upon repeated attempts suddenly and clearly says "Oh S...T".

The voluntary motion during electroencephalography often blocks the background resting normal rhythms (Alpha waves for the most part) and replaces it with a low voltage fast (Beta) activity, but this is somewhat variable and your experience in no way indicates that you are not "Normal"

Best

LJ

LJ, Not ready for Chapter 9, haven't even done much with Ch. 8, definitely showing signs of old age, wear and tear, and apparently in need of an engine tune-up, but I'll be back. Jackie, I did finally defrost the freezer. It's amazing how much space there is when the frost has been chipped away.

Happy Thanksgiving, brainiacs.

>Ros

Let's hold a few days and start nine and ten next week when the Turkey has digested. Say about Monday or Tuesday Nov 30th or Dec 1st.

Best

LJ

Hey, I've been reading all day, and am now on the nine, ten, eleven sector of the book. That poor chimp, having to make the food call, but trying to cover its mouth. Funny, this stuff is so deep, intense, it takes something like that chimp, something I can visualize clearly, to make its points clearer to me. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving to all from me too. I'm MOST thankful for the courageous and erudite participation of the discussants in our group. We've got this one under "Control" but need not rush ourselves.

What with the New York bash and Christmas coming up, and History of Western Philosophy about to start, I think it wise to delay "How the Mind Works" till we finish this one, and move somewhat slowly on the Philosophical front.

Best

LJ

LJ: does Mind go on with more of this physiological stuff? I am merely a science buff, not a professional. This has been hard going. (I wish I were young, and in school again. The joy of approaching a totally new subject, feeling my brain stretched to its limits... Oh, well.)

JACKIE, The "Mind" Book is utter simplicity compared to this one.

It takes an approach that would be readily comprehensible to an average High School student in language and syntax comprehensible to such a student.

It interdigitates with this one in such a way as to be both complimentary and supplimentary, and it will, I think, tie up much of what in this book remains "Fuzzy"

Best

LJ

LJ: What is so deceptive about Deacon's prose is that it is so easy. It is not until I get to the end of a sentence (one that is at least three lines long and is compound/compound/compound) that I realize the water is over my head and I can't breathe! However, careful reading and reading again always sorts out the tangles. It is beautiful prose, never ungrammatical. I thought I had found him with a plural subject and a singular predicate, but on the third reading, I found he was right and I was wrong. The prose is seductive, else I would have given up in disgust several hundred pages ago.

This book is a brain stretcher for certain. I haven't had much chance to read in the last while. I found Hoover the talking seal fascinating, and the piece on bird song. Each spring I get a very good example of young birds perfecting their song. This spring a young robin was trying to claim and hold a territory but he just could not sing as well as the older birds; his song was short and lower pitched. One night he sang without stopping, and his song improved more and more, until by morning he sang as good, if not better than the older birds; and held his territory and got a mate and raised young.

I'm thinking about this Deacon says on learning: "Learning is the late stage expression of a fine-tuning process that progresses from patterns involving the whole brain to those involving its smallest cellular branches." Does this mean that whenever we learn something, we first learn it using our whole brain? And as we commit to memory what we learn, the learning becomes part of the individual neurons in the brain?

And think of the massive amounts of data our brains process every minute of the day when we are awake. As I sit here, I see the computer screen in front of me; out of the corner of my eye I see the TV, I also hear the TV and the click of the keyboard keys as I type. I hunt and peck so only one finger has to be controlled. And I am thinking about what I am typing; I'm also processing language. Isn't it interesting how hard our brains work?

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving day.

Nellie

Nellie/Jackie

Its delightful to see how we conceptualize what we're reading, and its dramatic to note how one thing leads to another.

I don't recall that Deacon gives much discussion about the neurophysiology of memory or of "Consciousness". These two areas await a book of their own.

Best

LJ

Deacon's treatise twists the apparent cause and effect of evolution. It is quite a stretch from Lucy to the picture you paint with your words, Nellie. The events themselves are awesome; I am struck with wonder at the power of the intellect that is making these connections for us to read.

He has a clarifying section or two on evolution later, right now and in the upcoming chapter(s) he's applying the top-coat and glaze to the job.

Best

LJ

In chapter nine the opening emphasis is on the fact that the frontal regions have taken on much of the control of lower (brainstem etc) functions which ultimately makes "Fine tuning" of articulatory mechanisms possible. The so called "Symbol Acquisition Abilities" of the frontal association and projection fibres (essentially inseparable from thinking and reasoning) are the "Pacemaker" of language evolution in general and probably of the development of centers for motor and auditory analysis in particular.

I had some difficulty with his statement that "No prefrontal area receives direct input from primary sensory or motor cortices" The problem here is one of definition. i.e. What is the precise definition of "Pre-frontal". Also it seems to ignore the system of "U-Fibres" which unify from one gyrus to the next very extensively, and leaves me a bit uncertain about other areas such as the pre-motor suppressor areas (4s).

The discussion of "Frontal eye fields" is worth a small volume all by itself, but this may be due to my own interest in that area and its projections. The discussion or "Prefrontal" lobotomy (Hopefully, an archaic and brutal form of butchery) is interesting, but the crux of this section is a begining of our perception that the physiological mechanism of these connections resembles computer functions in "If then, else, else if" and selected "Not" gates.

There is excellent correlation with clinical observations of frontal lobe functions regarding; Short term memory, Attention, Suppression of responses and Context sensitivity. There is also an interesting correlation with reverbrating circuits and useing up "Short term memory" (RAM)

More later

Best

LJ

Page 264 raised in my mind a need to discuss the bilaterality of these prefrontal functions, but little is to be gained from "Muddying the waters" further. There is also a sentence just past the middle of this page which puts Caesar and his "Ablative Absolute" to shame. (It would take too long to copy it here)

Note in the middle of 265 "Prefrontal computations out-compete other cognitive computations and tend to dominate learning in us as in no other species......we have become disposed to use this one cognitive tool whenever an opportunity presents itself because an inordinate amount of control of the other processes in the brain has become invested in our prefrontal cortex."

WILLIAM'S Syndrome is an interesting discussion. I'm surprised it was not discussed in a frame of reference including GERSTMANN'S Syndrome which overlaps clinically and includes denial of the body half and constructional apraxia as well as finger agnosia, right-left disorientation, and acalculia.

Note on page 269 that it has been said that only "Man" knows where the parietal lobe ends and the occipital lobe begins. "God" didn't make a boundry mark.

I appreciated the definitions of "Lexical" and "Indexical" and agree that I'd not approach the discussion of "Autism".

It is interesting to note that in recovering Aphasic patients the speech assumes a "Scanning" nature, typical of persons with cerebellar lesions, and that Frontal lesions can produce an ataxia characteristic of cerebellar lesions.

I have one more brief comment on Chapter nine then when youall are ready on to Chapter 10.

Best

LJ

Now, the fulcrum of the book is on pg 277.

I'd like to take the liberty of adding and paraphrasing just a bit to those last two paragraphs to make it more clearly understandable. (Jackie, you might ask him whether he agrees or not):

".....These changes in prefrontal cortex derived from a global change in relative proportions" provide an increase in thinking and reasoning capacity which also happens to provide what language needs, i.e. "...an array of special prefrontal links with critical aspects of modern language functions which enable symbol construction, shifting control of vocalization.....and the bringing of of rapid cereballar prediction systems to the service of auditory vocal analysis".....The evolutionary logic among these parameters (Brain, thinking ability, cognition, symbolization and auditory-vocal abilities) make a presumption of co-evolution obvious.

After the next (fairly easy) chapter we will move into part III which is exciting and meaty, but not as difficult as part One was.

Best

LJ

LJ: Thank you for your illuminating comments. Where would we be without you to interpret? I will send an Email to Professor Deacon, asking him to comment on your summation. Perhaps he will "drop in" and you may have a direct dialog with him. We, of course, would be fascinated lurkers.

The more of this book I read, the more interested I am in the development of humans. New Scientist, a chatty "what's new in ..." magazine from Britain, has an advert from Oxford Books for "Becoming Human, by Ian Tattersall (Curator, Dept of Anthro.,Am Mus of Natural History). "...discusses human uniqueness, investigating the origins of those characteristics that so distinguish human beings..." Another one: The Conscious State of Matter (The RIddles of the Brain), by E. Ramon-Molliner, Vantage Press. "...We are conscious because of what is left in the brain that has not yet turned into a machine..."

I'm thinking of how the whole thing could have started; presumptious of me I know. First to summarize what is needed to make the "symbolic species": we need prefrontal expansion; we need lateral specialization; we need the larynx to descend; we need good motor control of breath and sound; we need a propensity for vocal mimicry; and we need the ability to do rapid, automatic phoneme analysis.

But what did it start with? Why not with "song"? I can picture homonids "singing" as part of the mating rituals; and one who "sings" better because his larynx was more descended down into his throat would tend to get more mates, or a mate more easily. He would pass his ability and his descended larynx on to his sons and daughters. Now the question is: was the larger prefrontal cortex all ready present at that point, or did it come into existence because of the increasingly more difficult "songs" that had to be used to attain mates? Since humans do not live in isolation, I can see all the different aspects of the symbolic species spread out over a group of homonids. There would be those who had a bit bigger prefrontal cortex; those who had a more descended larynx and perhaps a very good mimicry of "bird song"; those who had great breath and voice control. And over the generations all those abilities would get blended into one being. ( Not saying that quite right).

Now "song" would be only for mating purposes and the homonids would have had other calls for danger, food, and so forth, and these calls would most likely have turned into the first words. And I can see that once "speaking" got going that it might be the homonid with the best "gift of gab" who would get the females; thus again passing on his abilities. Of course a female who was good at "talking" would tend to choose a mate who was good at "talking" too.

Hope no one minds my weird theorizing but that is the way I have of thinking about things that puzzle me.

Nellie

NELLIE, You've made a VERY important observation, and one which I was surprised that T.D. didn't pursue much more fully. I have observed people with severe Alzheimer's/Picks disease (Clinically - still living) who maintained normal speech and melodic memory at a "Sub-cortical" (spontaneous) level. i.e. able to sing songs distinctly even when virtually all other speech was lost. This may be in part related to the well known affinity for these (Alzheimer's) patients for music in general. One also wonders if it might be related to a similar affinity for music in many profoundly retarded persons.

In a respectful, but humerous vein, Your description of the human mate selection call reminded me of Tarzan's famous "Song" in those old Black and White Flix.

Best

LJ

Nellie: This insight is amazing. I have long pondered the evolutionary imperative for perfect pitch (a quality which I lack). This theory would help explain the positive value of perfect pitch. All I could think of was using it to mimic bird calls, i.e., hunting. What an exciting trip we are having, aren't we?

That reminds me of a line from an old Broadway musical "Carousel" I think it was : "Love makes the world go round. Sex makes the trip worth-while"

Best

LJ

If you were close enough you might hear me uttering loud calls indicating relief at having found enough quiet time to fight my way through Chapter 8 at last, though when I finished, my higher brain thought I could have skipped a lot of it. I suffer from serious difficulty in converting two-dimensional diagrams into three-dimensional objects. Also some of Deacon's terminology doesn't correspond to other available pictures and text that I have. LJ, I envy you your familiarity with the subject matter.

I hope you will all bear with my struggles. In approaching this book I've tried to challenge my usual tendency (that of a rapid reader and glib writer) to summarize, overgeneralize, and translate scientific discourse into common terms. This reflects a belated effort to keep my own brain active. Spending so much time among old people, especially failing old people, has sensitized me to the danger of half-hearing what the author says and interpolating my own "In other words...." So if my mumblings are obvious, even superfluous, please understand.

On to Chapter 9!

Ros

Chapter 10 upon which I won't comment till next week is an expansion on chapter 9. The first twenty pages which are very interesting contain phrases like "Procrustean enterprise" and "Dissonant with existing paradigms" which have an artistic flair, but can be (and are) summarised in one sentence (pg 297- to the effect that there is no single language organ in the brain, not even one dedicated only to grammar.

Best

LJ

Has anyone else seen the news story about Noam Chomsky's new and simplified theory of language? It's described as "Minimalism." He has apparently abandoned his previous theory about the existence of a "universal grammar," and now says that (quoting the NYTimes article):

[Language] is a system of communication connecting sound and meaning....[ that this] system has been optimally designed, that the connection of sound to meaning was forged as simply as possible....

How does this fit in with Deacon's ideas? He wasn't thrilled, I think, about the earlier "universal grammar model" that all children were "born knowing."

Meanwhile I'm working my way through Chapter 10, much happier with it than Ch. 9, so I'm almost caught up with the rest of you.

Ros

In chapter 10 during the discussion of "Agrammatism" there's an interesting statement that visual cortical injuries result in permanant visual field defects. This is not entirely true, since like injuries to other brain areas there is a potential for recovery early on in the process. With recovering visual cortical lesions, the "On-off" phenomenon and/or the use of associated areas may occasionally be demonstrated by the perception of motion in a totally blind field of vision (Riddoch's phenomenon)

The comment on 287 re: Other primate brains have not evolved regions that are specifically used for language processes" must be interpreted in the light of the absence of language "entirely" in other primates. One wonders whether there might be "Other" "Communication " centers in these animals.

There is more to be said about our previous comments on music. At the top of 197, I wondered iof any of you have noticed that words and melody heard and replayed in memory don't realy "Gell" until sung aloud.

The observation on 298 was most important, i.e. That Primate brains having been around for tens of millions of years and mammalian prototypes for hundreds of millions, the logic of language is probably constrained to fit the Ape brain, but analyzing language by syntax and semantics or sensory and motor functions are more conveniences for the analyst than actualities of the brain's handling of language.

Note that the last (Long) paragraph on page 301 summarizes part I of the book rather succinctly.

On 309, the comment that "Virtual reference" is only "Virtually localized" brings to mind the fact that with a computer, no matter what the directions say, there are always two or three ways of doing something.

I think we're ready for PART III at your convenience.

Best

LJ

LJ: your remark that songs in memory don't "gel" until sung aloud is true, and the same could be said for the memorization of "words" such as poetry or pieces of prose. Those things are much easier memorized if spoken aloud. Did you ever see the movie made of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451? At the end everyone is memorizing books, aloud. And actors memorize their lines by reading them aloud.

But thinking more of language, I'm wondering how a specific word came to be associated with a specific object. I can picture a great multiplicity of languages with each tribe of hominids having its own words for different objects and actions. How did those many languages become fewer as time went by? Perhaps by conquest: a larger tribe conquers a smaller tribe and the members of the conquered tribe perforce have to learn the language of their captors. Through marriage outside of the immediate tribe, and through trade. I can even see a special "trade" language existing which would become the accepted language of use for everyone in an area as it is discovered it makes things so much easier.

I was surprised that my "song" ideas were not quite as weird as I thought.

Nellie

Nellie,

I remember the title "Farenheit 451" but don't think I ever saw it

Best

LJ

I am one of those people whose heads are never without some kind of internal melody accompanying everything. This ranges from snatches of actual instrumental music to popular songs to scales and arpeggios constantly running up and down, but there is apparently never silence while I'm conscious. Occasionally a bout of insomnia can be soothed by mentally reviewing all the old show tunes I can remember. This hasn't changed with the gradual loss of my ability to carry a tune. I'm often aware of a barely perceptible subvocalizing at the back of my throat, and I sometimes consciously lower the pitch, in my mind, of something I'm "hearing" because it would obviously be vocally impossible for me. However, the mental melody can be invented rather than remembered; so I'm not sure that the "gel" theory always holds.

Small children are often detected humming to themselves. Maybe my brain never matured to the point of discarding this mechanism.

Ros

Have you noticed how often, even in general conversation, a melody line with appropriate words, from a musical show comes not only to mind, but out of your mouth?

Best

LJ

Ros: I thought that I was the only one who had a personal soundtrack! It is especially maddening when it is something I hate that won't stop playing. Sometimes it is opera, sometimes it is Spike Jones.

LJ, is anyone else here or have our other correspondents gone to New York? Anyway, backing up a bit to the end of Chapter 10, I think various statements on pages 306-310 reinforce the "no separate center for processing grammar" argument that Chomsky has apparently recently come around to.

Deacon's description of the way in which progressive specialization and differentiation in language lead to parallel weakening of the non-contributing areas is recapitulated in the language development of the individual child, who initially over-generalizes, garbles word order, etc., but gradually gets the pathways right, discards immature forms, and is able to use mature grammar.

I have abandoned my attempt to three-dimensionalize my mental images of the language process and have resorted to a kind of linear interpretation. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Like the scarecrow in Oz, if only I had a brain I could understand it better. (If I had a 3-D model of a brain that would help.)

Now on to Chapter 11.

Ros

Deacon and Pinker are realy not that far apart in their thinking as will become apparant when we get to "How the Mind Works". Simply, Chapter eleven begins with the observation that Natural Selection would favor an animal that could communicate by the most effective mode.

Our observations on the fundimental importance of "Music" is further tittilated by the observation that "The one class of paralinguistic functions which ....had the longest co-evolutionary relationship with language is speech prosody"

I don't know whoall is in New York (That's one word like "Youall") but I think it will be Okeh for us to plough on through Chapter eleven.

Best

LJ

Can I now impress everyone with my neuroscientific sophistication by referring not to Darwinian selection but to Baldwinian selection?

That's a good point about the age and importance of the prosodic features. I notice there has been a research report in the news to the effect that in speech, the utterance "Oh!" has the effect of alerting the listener to pay attention because there's been a shift of emphasis. Infants/toddlers just beginning to talk seem to learn to use "Oh!" as well. And it seems to occur in many languages.

Ros

Nellie and I are here. Eleven is more comprehensible. I like your Baldwinian evolution, Ros. BTW, the local press covered the announcement of the discovery of a "new" hominid in South Africa, near Pretoria. So many lucky breaks, I'm afraid I smell cold fusion.

Even at this late phase in the book Deacon's florid turns of phraseology continue to enamour me. How'd you like "...Other symbols that have not survived the selective sieve of fossilization...." At times he waxes poetic.

The material on Human Anthropology is indeed up to date, at least as of last year, but wisely, he didn't dwell too long in this area where new findings and publications are emerging almost daily.

We have another summary of chapter three on page 378 The social evolution discussed in chapter twelve was certainly a major shift of gears and including such things as "Reciprocal Altruism" made for fascinating reading, as well as "Meat for meditation" far into the future.

Best

LJ

Well, I was getting the feeling that only a few Cinderellas would be left back among the ashes while everyone else junketed off to New York. Glad to learn I was wrong.

Jackie, do you fear another Piltdown Man hoax? I think you're wise to hesitate before embracing every new discovery. It begins to seem like those "miracle cures" for every known ill that are touted on the local TV newscasts every night, with the "cure" writ large and the "caveats" whispered low.

Nellie, as you work through Chapter 11, can you hear our early ancestors chirping and caroling to each other as they approached the ability to communicate?

To digress a bit, did anyone ever encounter, long, long ago, a book called "The Story of Ab"? It was about cave people.

Deacon's material and presentation are far from Disney or Jurassic Park stuff, but his writing is colorful and does evoke images. I feel that struggling with this book has enriched my awareness of prehistory. I enjoy his style and am simply agog at his ability to churn out this high-class prose.

Ros

Ros: My credibility is stretched when one bone fragment, salvaged from a limestone "quarry" matches exactly a bone fragment sticking out of the wall where dynamite was the medium for harvesting the limestone 65 years ago! Cold fusion, if you recall, was a revolutionary method for fusing hydrogen atoms, a method so revolutionary that no other lab could ever replicate the results. Chirping and caroling ancestors, what a charming fantasy. And Nellie's romance through song, such a change from the stereotypical cave man bonks cave woman on the head and drags her off to his cave. Singing, chirping, caroling--modern man could learn something.

Jackie, I agree with your initial impression of doubt, but usually one searches for additional artifacts and "Parts" in the vicinity of where others have been found. Can you tell us more abour the circumstances of the find?

Best

LJ

Perhaps you would care to look at the source? San Jose Mercury News, Knight-Ridder, is on line at Mercury Center. The initial discovery of a hominid foot in the museum's storeroom prompted a search for more parts to this skeleton. Lo, more pieces were found. Next, we go to the cave, described as vast, and searchers locate another piece, sticking out of the limestone wall, which exactly matches the first piece! A further search revealed the almost intact skeleton, lying on its face, embedded in the limestone. Extraction is underway as we read this. The skeleton is nearly complete, all the teeth, most of the skull, foot and leg bones, torso. Important evidence as to the creatures locomotion. Apparently, the articulation of the toe and the shape of the foot suggest the creature was equiped for climbing trees, as well as walking erect. Even more incredible, the limestone in the cave was harvested 65 years ago by dynamiting.

Jackie: that discovery does sound awefully "FAKE" doesn't it? Much too storybook for me to believe it.

It is understandable that those who communicated better would survive better. A hominid tribe in which each member could clearly describe the location of a food source to the other members, would stand a much better chance of survival in times of scarcity. Even better would be to know when and where a foodsource would exist in the future, extrapolated from the past, and to communicate that to others.

Now I wonder when Man developed a Time sense? I think it evolved alongside Language because so much of language is Time dependent. And there is so much more to language; it leads to sharing, first of food, and later of practical knowledge; and finally theoretical knowledge. And sharing bonds the tribe closer together.

And picturing that a food might be present in a certain place in the future means use of imagination. Isn't it fascinating how many things the use of language leads to?

Nellie

Nellie: You are really getting into this. Wonderful what an imagination can do for you.

Ros & LJ: I left out a part of my earlier post. The South African discovery was more like cold fusion to me because it has been announced with little time for any vetting, whereas Piltdown Man was a calculated hoax.

Jackie, your doubts seem to be well-founded. I think the hungry maw of the media gobbled this down too quickly. Though it occurred to me that this might be one of those situations where DNA analysis could actually identify similarities, still the circumstances of the find make it sound too much like a miracle.

I notice you're seeking a mission statement. Here's one from "George Orwell" (Eric Blair) that I like and have resorted to many times: The only solution lies in recognizing that there is no solution.

It's another way of saying, "Press on regardless," which after all is what most of us have to do.

Ros

Thanks, Ros. That's basically how I stumble through life. However, it sounds better to say there is a mission statement than to admit that life has been one long passage through a maze where I can't see beyond the next turning, doesn't it?

I imagine that the recent finding and the particulars of evidentiary material will be reported in the appropriate journals and/or books in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, the summary of chapter twelve was well and succinctly done in two sentences. "But putting evolutionary causes and effects in appropiate order and precisely identifying the anatomical correlates of this transition are a prerequisite for providing andthing beyond "Just So" versions of the process. The key to this is the co-evolutionary perspective which recognizes that the evolution of language took place neither inside nor outside the brains, but at the interface where cultural evolutionary processes affect biological evolutionary processes."

I thought the "Rituals" concept and thread might have been developed more fully, but it does leave a lot open for individual thought and comparison.

When youall are ready for the florid discussion up-coming and concluding this work please move into the realm of "Computer-Mind-Philosophy" with the last two chapters.

Best

LJ

I think that the major shift in approach to "Symbolic Thinking" is Deacon's idea that we humans (even children) are "Savants" at symbolic learning, and as a species we see the world in symbolic categorical terms (Our "Cognitave strategy)

In this vein, we should include "Fairy Tales" which cross linguistic boundaries and which appear to be almost universal in theme and content. There are some books written on this subject, but its been about ten years since I've come across them so I can't give any titles.

Best

LJ

Thenext series of thoughts relate to both "History of Western Philosophy" and our upcoming book "How the Mind Works". "How do we know we're in a world populated by other minds?" Descartes said "Cogito Ergo Sum". There is, of course, the "Solipsistic" (I like that word) arguement that we can have direct knowledge only of ourselves.

The thought that an unconscious process might rewrite our memories (Suppression) might even put us in doubt of ourselves, is a pertinant problem in psychodynamics.

Best

LJ

A helpful resummarization or parallel approach to chapter three is on Pg.429. "Three ways...in which Emotional states...come into concert with oneanother. First,.... mediation by spontaneous mimicry (Iconic). Second,....by a reaction to a common extrinsic stimulus (Indexical), and third.... by a representation of the state of the other (Symbolic)"

Chapter thirteen concludes with an interesting quote which deserves contemplation: "We intuitavely hold the most intelligent,...educated,...and experienced people to higher standards". and "When these cognitive difficulties are considered,...in choices that may be in conflict with... self interest it becomes obvious why ethically guided self-control is both uncommon and fragile"

Best

LJ

LJ: I have to think more on the many interesting thing you have said. But right now I'm thinking of how we know other minds exist, human minds that is. I know other minds exist because of language in both spoken and written form. In the case of spoken language you usually see and hear the person; and you know that writing does not just appear out of thin air(at least not normally, the exception is the handwriting on the wall in the Bible). Seeing symbols in form of letters, pictograms, cuneiforms, hieroglyphics, one can assume a language is being used and that people with brains much like our own left the writings. And indirect as it is, I think it is the best proof we have that other human minds exist.

Another interesting thought I had is that only a "symbolic species" like ourselves could invent computers because only a "symbolic species" can invent the languages used to program computers.

"Ethically guided self-control is both uncommon and fragile"...if self-control is not guided by ethics, what does guide it?

Nellie

NELLIE.

Good and well thought through post, and one with which I personally agree, but the "Philosophers" would argue ad nauseum that we ALL might be self-programing in-put out-put computer robots. This is, of course, ridiculous. We need to keep this line of thinking in mind as a means of comprehending the philosophers in the ongoing reading of the "History of Western Philosophy", and we will find an ally (and a much more easily understandable one at that) in Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works".

So far as "Ethically guided self control" is concerned, I'd suggest that the counterpart might me "Legally constrained" or "punishment oriented" self control.

Best

LJ

Nellie, your question about "how we know minds exist" is challenging ... though I was surprised to find myself thinking first about Descartes's "I think, therefore I am" and only second about Deacon's description of Baldwinian evolution in which the mind, so to speak, unrolled through a long process of selection in which hominids who had stumbled on some kind of symbolic representation proved more likely to survive, hence more likely to reproduce, hence more likely to pass on those peculiar brain furrows and bumps that gave them space to store the concept of symbols, and to mate with other hominids whose furrowed brains also were developing in that direction. It's hard for me not to put the cart before the horse in this kind of thinking, but that's the kind of trap Deacon avoids.

Ros

Please, Please' PLEASE, If anybody has "Scanned" this last chapter, go back and read it again. The "Meat" of the book is here, as is the introduction to "How the Mind Works".

One might say that in the last chapter we have a meeting of The Brain, The Mind, and the Computer.

Of course the language remains articulate, complex and beautiful, comparable to "Grand Opera". You'll be pleased to know that "How the Mind Works" is more comparable to "Spike Jones"

Best

LJ

LJ, I did speed-read through the last chapter when I began the book, but that was just to get a glimpse of Who Done It. And right now I'm on page 429 of Chapter 13, so it'll be tomorrow or Sunday before I get to the Act III arias and grand finale, and I promise to go slowly.

The latter part of this book is marvelously written and really exciting, bringing in other disciplines and introducing ideas that make you want to holler. I do intend to finish it with care.

In the hope of moving faster, I tried to stop myself from underlining and writing marginal notes in 12 and 13, but there were many places where my pencil overruled my good intentions.

I am truly grateful to you for encouraging me to tackle The Symbolic Species and for making attentive reading an imperative. Many things in my life tend to make mindless fiction a necessary palliative and serious discourse a luxury, but you have reminded me that it's worth the effort.

Best,

Ros

Thank you Ros. That was both very generous and kind, but above all very flattering. I have to give Jackie the real credit for pulling us together; I believe we all rushed in where Angels feared to tread, but I must say it certainly has been worth the effort.

Best

LJ

LJ, Ros, Nellie: What a delightful time we have had with this. I've been remiss, misplaced my book. My daughter says it is in her car, so I'll dig it out today. What ideas we have sparked off one another. Nellie: the question about knowing others have minds, I have a very simple answer. We know others have certain characteristics because our mothers had them, and the other members of our group/family/clan had them as we grew up. Therefore, a stranger who was like but not a member of our group would also have a mind as they had hands and eyes, etc.

With the busy holiday season upon us, its fortunate that we've reached the culmination of our discussion of this book, and its amazeing how it literal;ly funnells us into the up-coming "Mind" book.

For those who are following the "Western Philosophy" discussion, there are salient points here in the last chapter regarding Aristotle, Divine Guidance, Astrology, Death, Religion, and Descartes.

Regarding, "How the Mind Works" There are comments on Consciousness, Meditation, Sentience and Artificial Intelligernce.

Both Deacon and Pinker refer to "Mentalese" (At times with a definite "Sneer") I'm not sure that either of them fully defines it and I get the impression that its one of those words that experts "Groove" on argueing about.

Personally, I've learned a great deal from this reading, and I've been impressed (If not overwhealmed) by the linguistic beauty of the composition.

As we move into the future I can't resist one terminal quote (Somewhat "Tongue in cheek" I hope): "The question before us is whether we will begin to treat people like unconscious computers, or come to treat conscious computers like people"

I will now put into the "Chinese Box" the following slips of paper: Kalla Xristougenna kai Xronia Polla ---- Ein Froeliche Weinachten und ein Gluckliches Neues Yahr ---- Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ---- Have a Joyous Saturnalia and may we ALL see many more Winter Solcistes.

Best

LJ

Yes, the book ends with a bang, not - as T. S. Eliot said about the world, "with a whimper." Somehow Deacon's lucid prose and intelligent comments about human intelligence and human potential were comforting in this grievously depressing moment of history.

In the current Scientific American there's a small feature about COG, a computer that is being built in the direction of "consciousness." The construction is ongoing, with features added as the research team experiments and learns. The article quotes Daniel Dennett (referred to in Deacon's book) as saying, "If we can get it to do everything we want it to do, it will be conscious." Hmm. Worth following up?

I trust that this Courageous Quartet, Quintet, or whatever the required minimum is, will be back "in class" on January 1st (or 2d), ready to tackle the next part of the intellectual adventure. My only New Year's resolution will be to recognize reality and, when cheerfulness seems out of reach, to strive for acceptance. May you all look forward to a peaceful and productive year.

Ros

Ros,

I'll be there with you (perhaps not with bells on), The lord willin, an the creek don't rise" ---- too much. Best LJ

Since I had such a great time in this discussion, I'll be there with bells on and hopefully a working brain, for the next discussion in the new year.

Nellie

Nellie (one last word for 1998): Have you had an opportunity to glance at How the Mind Works? I've been thinking of you and your sci-fi interest each time I've picked up the book. Not that it isn't thoroughly grounded in reality - there's a tremendous amount of information and it is well-written in a style that's in many ways more accessible than Deacon's - but his interest in robotics, his way of viewing consciousness, and his lively imagination in writing about scientific matters all suggest that this is a book many sci-fi buffs would enjoy. Or at least they might enjoy tuning in on our discussion.

I don't read much sci-fi any more, except the sci-fantasy level of Sheri Tepper, Connie Willis, et al. I feel that much of it is not "utopic" but "dystopic" - predicting the future as a rather dark time with the threats of war, conflict, and catastrophe even more ominous than they are today. I like the various incarnations of Star Trek better than the other futurist shows on TV too. So I guess that means I'm not a real fan. I have other ways of escaping from reality. (Smile)

Best wishes for 1999.

Ros

I read Heinlein's prototype book "Stranger in a strange land" and having learned to "Grok", felt I'd mastered the "Genre". For some strange reason I identified with the Doctor, "Front!". Amazing how much of it I still remember. That was nearly 25 years ago.

Merry Christmas

Gudyuntiff

Best

LJ

Dear Friends: What a time we've had. I'm so glad we are continuing on with Mind. The kind of science fiction I've always like best was the space opera, hard science stuff. But then along came Spider Robinson's Callahan's Saloon. "I didn't know this was an iris bar." Ros, you know how I love puns. This book is full of them. During the same conversation quoted above is "Sure and begonia." Happy Holidays to you all with love from Jackie.

I've come in to say that our LJ has had a heart attack, and has come home from the Emergency Room to recuperate at home. He also plans to resume driving Monday, in true LJ fashion. This is a good time to send a card.

Ginny

Ginny: Do you mean an electronic card? If you mean snail mail, will you give us his address? I know it is Kentucky. He is so very special.

Either one, Jackie, I guess I meant just a note. Anybody who wants his postal address, write me.

Ginny