tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9108460941383722228.post7947053928981773340..comments2023-07-19T11:51:14.533+02:00Comments on Shared Symbolic Storage: Friedrich Nietzsche on the Origin of Language and ConsciousnessMichael Pleyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17318686099980839847noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9108460941383722228.post-86602456745680572732009-05-13T13:16:00.000+02:002009-05-13T13:16:00.000+02:00Elliot, you make a very valid point and thanks for...Elliot, you make a very valid point and thanks for the interest in my site.<br /><br />We have to bear in mind that Nietzsche wrote this more than 120 years ago and much of evolutionary research was not even in its infancy.<br /><br />You might want to have a look at my posts on Brain Evolution, Language Evolution, or Social Cognition, where some of these ideas are laid out in more detailed. (Or go to the excellent blog, Babel's Dawn, which is written much clearer and more down-to-earth than my blog).<br /><br />Essentially, the argument for a relationship between language and social groups goes like this: Humans live in so special kinds of social groups and were subject to special kinds of selection pressure (e.g. in the Pleistocene Savanna), that new cognitive and communicational capacities had to emerge to deal with these new problems.<br /><br />Lion and other social groups, especially that of other primates, are indeed coordinated and complex (see my Book Reviews on Baboon Metaphysics for example).<br /><br />But human social groups are much, much more sophisticated. We reason about other people's mental states, adhere to abstract social contracts, create institutions, etc.<br /><br />These unique aspects of human culture have to be regulated by a unique sets of mental adaptations, and, so the argument goes, these mental adaptations enabled us to survive in an extremely dangerous habitat with lots of predators - we had survival advantages through having a very special kind of complex social group that no other animal has.<br /><br />I hope that cleared some things up, If you're interested do have a look at blogs like Babel's Dawn or take a look at some of the excellent books on the topic, such as Christine Kennealy's "The First Word," or Mihcael Tomasello's "The Origins of Human Communication"Michael Pleyerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17318686099980839847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9108460941383722228.post-90335229010611596962009-05-06T17:27:00.000+02:002009-05-06T17:27:00.000+02:00The origin of language, and it's many variations h...The origin of language, and it's many variations has always fascinated me..I am 72 years old, speak only North American English, but have met some people that are fluent in several languages, some of them very different..for example a good friend from Iran, speaks his native tongue, also English, French and some Russian...all with some accent and inability to fully pronounce each and every word...but still with full meaning of the thought behind each communication...Now in trying to remember part of what I had read..it seemed that Nietzsche was saying that as part of human evolution we had to become a social and gregarious group..I assume to hunt, and find breeding mates..yet other animals, lion prides, wolf packs, and others appear to enjoy the same aspects of a social group... there is no language as we know it..yet they act in harmony with each other in hunting prey and there is a definite "pecking order" in the group...I still don't find any correlation between language and evolution and our specie.Elliott Shimleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9108460941383722228.post-19710123670882137812008-06-17T05:05:00.000+02:002008-06-17T05:05:00.000+02:00In that case, let me say that philosophers in gene...In that case, let me say that philosophers in general are a very bad guide to the state of biological evolution theory at the time Nietzsche was writing. Josiah Royce, for example, relies on Schopenhauer more than Darwin and mostly philosophy engaged Spencer or Huxley rather than Darwin or the Darwinians. It's a bit like Midgley engaging Ayer or Dawkins rather than, say, Lewontin or Maynard Smith.<BR/><BR/>From <A HREF="http://www.mith.demon.co.uk/darniet.htm" REL="nofollow">this page</A>, and also <A HREF="http://www.hichumanities.org/Ahproceedings/James%20Birx.pdf" REL="nofollow">this paper</A> it is clear to me that Nietzsche simply didn't understand natural selection, because he thought that the better types were those that would lose out in selection. He was not alone at that time; many people had confused ideas about selection, and many philosophers still do (e.g., David Stove). This is largely because, I believe, the eugenic notion of selection is based on the common experience of selective breeding (which Darwin called "artificial selection") leading to fragile and sensitive types, such as thoroughbred horses. Nietzsche appears to think that the intellectual will lose out. On Darwin's view, if that were true, then too bad - the less intellectual types would simply be fitter.<BR/><BR/>Huxley's <EM>Evolution and Ethics</EM> also makes this point forcefully - we should not rely on evolution to give us the moral or ethical types, but by an act of will seek to manufacture the civilisation we most value. Maybe that is what Nietzsche was trying to say, in his own inimitable style.<BR/><BR/>I would also suggest you investigate the views of James Mark Baldwin and <A HREF="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&id=yBtRzBilw1MC&dq=baldwin+effect&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=2J0t0A52o6&sig=WXZRyFNvO7xoV51O9I2lCTPcExU&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPR5,M1" REL="nofollow">the Baldwin Effect</A> which has had a long history as either anti-Darwinian or more recently something that, although "internal" is Darwinian after all.John S. Wilkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04417266986565803683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9108460941383722228.post-25357873361586059572008-06-17T00:32:00.000+02:002008-06-17T00:32:00.000+02:00Although you may not know much about Nietzsche any...Although you may not know much about Nietzsche anymore (and neither do I, at least that's the impression I get when I'm listening toi the other bright people in my Nietzsche-Course.<BR/>I'm sorry if I didn't get that across, but I was trying to express the fact that I don't have any real idea about the state of evolutionary theory in Darwin's time, and that you're surely a greater authority on the topic than me, for example regarding the question whether 19th Century Darwinism didn't take into account internal selection sufficiently, or whether Darwinians really claimed that the life of an organism was basically about a very conservative kind of self-preservation and nothing eleseMichael Pleyerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17318686099980839847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9108460941383722228.post-69795375494765977272008-06-16T15:13:00.000+02:002008-06-16T15:13:00.000+02:00Thanks for the link, but your confidence is unwarr...Thanks for the link, but your confidence is unwarranted. The last time I read Nietzsche, I was an undergraduate.John S. Wilkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04417266986565803683noreply@blogger.com