Terrence Deacon -- Language and complexity: Evolution inside out

Min. 51- on birds learning to sing, "They listen to themselves." Interestingly, this feedback process in birds singing was noted by George Herbert Mead, in his book "Mind, Self, and Society". Self-interaction is also a major concept in his theory of consciousness; it's good to see that genetic and neurological developments are confirming his insights.

[@ArtVandelay99]

Really powerful content Deacon is giving us here - and his televangelist-style delivery somehow makes it hit home even more :-D

[@nyworker]

1:17:00 Pictorial Language Discussion...I believe the Asian language symbols are pictorial or not phonetic like Western languages.

[@musskytussk]

this is awesome, thanks for posting!!

[@olly3700]

great lecture.worth spreading...

[@stevenhines5550]

I think of it like "higher-order sentience". We are the most complex expressions of consciousness around on this speck of dust but, as Chomsky says, we are STILL constrained by our genetic endowment.

[@vilniuslu13]

extraordinary ...please more lecture on linguistics...and please let's share other informations as well.

[@gregmattson2238]

ok, I think I'd shell out good money to watch a pay-per-view cage match between him and chomsky.

[@LuigiSimoncini]

Great lecture! thanks!

[@insightfool]

Very nice. Thanks for posting that.

[@MinGWDownload]

Great presentation on evolution, thank you.

[@KeystoneFlow]

I thought what he was saying was very germane. The beginning was interesting insomuch as he speculation motivated forward-thinking, but most of the lecture could have been narrowed to the one slide with the comparison between motor-based song and cognitive/social song. Notice how everyone's questions are general to the topic, rather than dealing with the material that was pushed through slide-by-slide.

[@thrasherrrr]

Eye opening! I am buying symbolic species for sure

[@GodlessPhilosopher]

That was incredible.

[@rewtnode]

This was very interesting and convincing. Yet I still don’t understand what his gripe is with Chomsky. He’s turns Chomsky into a straw man by picking on the weaker point that imo Chomsky did care too much about trying to explain except in trying to dismiss the clean slate hypothesis of behaviourism. I wonder if there was ever a debate between them?

[@Aluminata]

Evolution does not proceed in the linear fashion logic would suggest; rather it gathers various components to its self for prolonged periods and then bursts forth in sudden surges of innovation, progress and change.

[@yolbermad]

thanks for this.......

[@stevenhines5550]

I don't think the social component of language acquisition is incompatible AT ALL with evolution. Maybe we have evolved to social function? I mean everyone knows that bees and ants and termites are. Would a bee kept in isolation understand how to hive or waggle?

[@yayme28]

awesome!

[@susanburns1089]

Could the symbolic ecosystem (beaver dam) be religion?

[@yomerolo]

Reading Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning makes you assume so....

[@worldpeace8299]

"Darwin himself fell prey to this idea and actually moved much more towards a Lamarckian view..."

[@SpenderDebby-x6n]

Lopez Eric Clark Steven Williams Larry

[@deselby9448]

Comparing a peacock's tail to the formation of the first language is ridiculous to the point of either seeming incompetent or an extreme example of researcher bias. If language developed as a natural part of evolution then it would had to have been created by people. So who were those people? Why doesn't Terrence Deacon, or anyone else that discusses the evolution of language, ever discuss the maturational constraints or the effect those constraints would have had on peoples ability to create a language? Is Terrence unaware of the maturational constraints? If so, then why is he wasting everyone's time by giving speeches about the "evolution of language" when he doesn't even understand constraints that would significantly affect such a proposal?

[@coreyspink6513]

He mentions those in his talk briefly, and in greater detail in the book he mentions "The Symbolic Species". The maturational constraints are actually fairly important to part of his hypothesis, although perhaps turned on its head compared to what you might be thinking. This also connects nicely with connectionist modelling of cognitive processes out of the late 80s and 90s.