tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post8140690451884351362..comments2024-03-28T15:48:11.151-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: A BEAUTIFUL MINDRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-85692049911794067962017-05-31T10:00:47.154-04:002017-05-31T10:00:47.154-04:00It seems this thread is long dead and buried. At t...It seems this thread is long dead and buried. At the risk of zombifying it...<br /><br />"Most evolutionary psychology"--I don't know that I have an adequate read on 'the field' as a whole. I mean, one could say "most of psychology" suffers from a replication crisis. There are important methodological issues to work through, to be sure. And some of the myth-making is transparently ideological.<br /><br />But if you're committed to an evolutionary picture of the human person, the fundamentals are sound. What are the fundamentals of evolutionary psychology? Well, according to me, the theories of kin selection (WD Hamilton), reciprocal altruism (Trivers, Axelrod), indirect reciprocity (Alexander), and some of the resulting discussions (including, yes, by Dawkins, Pinker, Hrdy and others). Even evopsych 'critic' Philip Kitcher relies heavily on their work in his empirically grounded account in 'The Ethical Project'.<br /><br />As I'm working through Jesse Prinz's "Beyond Human Nature" (which can be read as a critique of certain versions of evopsych), I'm gaining a new appreciation for some of the overstatements of 'innate'-talk in evopsych.<br /><br />But I'm concerned about the cavalier dismissal of evolutionary psychology as some sort of fad or something. If psychology is important and Darwin was right (I take both to be uncontroversial), then the broad project of evolutionary psychology (viz. understanding how our fundamental desires and drives, as well as our cultural malleability, have been molded or left alone by evolutionary pressures) is well worth pursuing, it seems to me.<br /><br />You know, in addition to the rest of science, social theory, economics, anthropology, etc. etc. etc.<br /><br />So much to learn, so little time.Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-26790803643723965112017-05-26T13:29:20.860-04:002017-05-26T13:29:20.860-04:00p.s. I used to reach Dawkins, Dennett, Pinker, and...p.s. I used to reach Dawkins, Dennett, Pinker, and Ridley voraciously as a younger man. Glad those days are behind me...Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-63459550680774928992017-05-26T13:28:45.417-04:002017-05-26T13:28:45.417-04:00Daniel,
It's not JUST linguistic, I take it to...Daniel,<br />It's not JUST linguistic, I take it to be the case that most evolutionary psychology is at most mythological and at worst extremely conservative. <br /><br />They are all just-so stories, incapable of actual reproduced testing, are mostly all non-falsifiable, and often extract back into our human history traits and tendencies which are historically contingent (what Marx rightly called ideology). E.g., do humans have an innate tendency to truck and barter? Do humans have an innate tendency towards racism? Do humans have an innate tendency towards patriarchy? Who the hell knows or can know, the subjects you would need to test (humans) are always already cultered, and the conditions for reproducing such evolutionary events are quite literally impossible to reproduce.<br />Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-25988856760720032902017-05-26T11:31:06.742-04:002017-05-26T11:31:06.742-04:00Chris - I'd be interested to hear more about w...Chris - I'd be interested to hear more about why you think this about language (as opposed to any other aspect or trait of the human animal).<br /><br />I mean, I'm not a biologist or a psychologist. My dissertation was in moral psychology, so I read a lot of evo psych, but that's about it.<br /><br />But Richard Alexander's book "The Biology of Moral Systems" (which lays out the theory of indirect reciprocity very clearly--basically the game theoretical account for how selflessness or 'altruism' could evolve in species that are capable of mentally tracking reputations) in conjunction with Robin Dunbar's work on gossip and reputation management (mentioned above) lays out pretty compellingly what the *outlines* of an evolutionary account of language must be.<br /><br />I agree that the details (as with most such stories) are (and probably must be) extrapolated--so it's a 'just so' story of sorts. As Phillip Kitcher argues in "The Ethical Project" however, outlining a *possible* evolutionary path from point A to point B is already a substantial accomplishment, even if it involves some conjecture.Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-89391406113201389732017-05-25T13:04:20.494-04:002017-05-25T13:04:20.494-04:00On a related but slightly separate note, Daniel, I...On a related but slightly separate note, Daniel, I find basically any and all attempts to tell an evolutionary story as to how/why language evolved as essentially mythical at best, and dangerously conservative at worst. I'm a total layman in the field, but given my other considered philosophical positions, at the moment I would think 1) Chomsky would be wrong to say language came from "a mutation", and 2) anyone giving a just so story as to how/why it came along is offering unsubstantial conjecture. Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-69177087152013226342017-05-25T13:01:30.004-04:002017-05-25T13:01:30.004-04:00W and M, I understand your points but I think they...W and M, I understand your points but I think they are incorrect, and mistake readings of my point.<br />I was not suggesting language was the creation of an individual, since in order to create something, someone needs a creative faculty. We do not create hearts, we evolve them. We do not FIRST build ships, we evolve the capacity for creative work, and then exercise it in ship building. So no, I was not arguing someone could create language, and to think someone could a priori or ad hoc 'create language' only begs the question, how does this person here have that capacity that those animals there lack? Presumable evolution played a role. Okay, so we are back to the evolution question. Can a language faculty evolve from 'a mutation'? That's HYPER dubious as Daniel points out. If you think a heart, a lung, an eye, an entire frontal lobe, or a sex organ, cannot evolve from 'a mutation', then I think we need to agree that 'a language faculty' could not either.<br /><br />So Wallerstein, of course every once in a while a genius like Shakespeare (or Delillo anyone?) comes along and creatively twists language in a fantastic manner of unprecedented greatness, but in order for that person to do so, they must first have a language faculty. Just as in order to have an excellent cardio vascular system from fastidious exercise, I first need a cardio vascular system...Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-25681557089219874522017-05-25T12:28:24.978-04:002017-05-25T12:28:24.978-04:00"You could imagine that in prehistoric, preli..."You could imagine that in prehistoric, prelinguistic societies, creative genius develops more freely than it does today because there are fewer repressing factors: no school, no media, no Facebook, fewer or simpler social codes, etc." -- so our ancestors were noble savages?<br /><br />"... the capacity for language first arose in a single individual." -- Right, which presumes that 'the capacity for language' is a single thing, acquired in a quantum leap tied to some genetic mutation or other. I find this evolutionarily implausible (not impossible) and prefer simpler explanatory alternatives left unexplored by Chomsky (all ably outlined by Prinz in the book cited above).Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-76430779580479261512017-05-25T11:53:55.554-04:002017-05-25T11:53:55.554-04:00Chomsky is not claiming that language was the crea...Chomsky is not claiming that language was the creation of a single individual, but that the capacity for language first arose in a single individual. Language arose in the communities of those descendants of that first Good Mutant who shared in their illustrious ancestor's language-capacity and developed the communications patterns that it made possible.mesnenorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10813095598060277786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-65762023586655105892017-05-25T10:04:51.641-04:002017-05-25T10:04:51.641-04:00I guess for language to be the creation of a singl...I guess for language to be the creation of a single individual you'd have to imagine a super creative genius, a combination of Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven, Plato, Marx, Einstein and Wittgenstein, with an IQ of, say, 250. You could imagine that in prehistoric, prelinguistic societies, creative genius develops more freely than it does today because there are fewer repressing factors: no school, no media, no Facebook, fewer or simpler social codes, etc. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-5185161267908323402017-05-25T09:24:35.975-04:002017-05-25T09:24:35.975-04:00Undisputed brilliance aside, it seems to me Chomsk...Undisputed brilliance aside, it seems to me Chomsky is likely wrong, at least in some fashion, on this point. Jesse Prinz has a nice chapter on the problems with (and alternative to) Chomskian nativism in his book "Beyond Human Nature".<br /><br />But without getting bogged down in the details, and to reprise Chris' point, the idea of a capacity for language emerging spontaneously and adaptively out of a single mutation in a single individual strikes me as preposterous, for several reasons. One (again, as Chris pointed out), no one in evolutionary biology or psychology talks about single mutations driving large scale behaviors. Certain nefarious single mutations might be able to severely impair proper functioning of some cognitive or physical trait, but that's about as direct a line as you get from genes to function, I think. All the other paths are far more circuitous, to my understanding.<br /><br />Two, mainstream accounts of the evolution of language from anthropology and primatology emphasize the primacy of the social functions of language. I'm thinking in particular of Robin Dunbar's work in "Gossip, Grooming, and the Evolution of Language". Dunbar contends that language likely functioned among our early ancestors as a kind of extended grooming. Grooming in primates having the function of removing parasites, of course, but also and especially of nurturing social ties. Based on public conversations analyzed (at cafes and the like), Dunbar contends that the bulk of ordinary human conversation in everyday life revolves around gossip (who's doing what) and reputation management (do you know how awesome and funny i am?). So that at least seems to be in keeping with what our primate cousins are up to, and not a completely novel capacity in its inception (though we've admittedly taken language in novel directions).<br /><br />That's probably enough for now. <br /><br />Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-46181461998968724582017-05-24T14:06:49.990-04:002017-05-24T14:06:49.990-04:00Professor Wolff,
I take it Point Three has to foll...Professor Wolff,<br />I take it Point Three has to follow from Point One, and cannot stand alone? The idea of "a mutation" giving rise to something as complex as thought, or even communication, seems somewhat absurd...? A mutation might change the color of my eyes, but to give me an entirely new mode of being, something more than "a" mutation must take place, no?<br /><br />But if that is absurd, then couldn't all the properties for language have been evolving (as spandrils/non-advantageous surviving properties), but only began operating all at once?<br /><br />Again, at the moment the theory sounds almost too contra evolution to be believed. If I said "a mutation" gave rise to a heart, no one would believe me. How could "a mutation" then give rise to a linguistic structure granting humans complex thought?Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-23769315737955191302017-05-24T13:26:09.952-04:002017-05-24T13:26:09.952-04:00I know nothing about linguistics, but when I lis...I know nothing about linguistics, but when I listen to his talks on politics, Chomsky impresses me as the most brilliant mind I've ever come into contact with.<br /><br />He's slowed down a bit with age (although his mind is still impressively sharp and his memory beats my computer). However, if you go back and watch his interview in Youtube with William Buckley (from 1969), Chomsky's mind can best be described as a deadly weapon. <br /><br />To be clear, I've read books by minds as sharp as Chomsky's, but I've never had the privilege of listening to them and watching them as I can Chomsky's on YouTube. <br /><br />I'm glad he's on our side, although maybe a mind as brilliant as Chomsky's could only be on our side. <br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.com