If you’re trying to help StreetlightX derail your own thread you’ve pretty much succeeded. Kind of sad, but such is the nature of online forums.

Stop taking the bait? There has been four pages of hot air, and repetition dressed up as evidence. Some people just have a chip on their shoulder.

I do, I'm a linguist. All of your responses in this thread just puzzle me, to be honest. It takes less effort to talk to someone than to freak out and proclaim them to be an ignoramus or idiot any time they say something. And you'll note people have been reading what you've cited in this thread, and have critiqued it as well! But you are not engaging with what anyone says.

If you’re trying to help StreetlightX derail your own thread you’ve pretty much succeeded. Kind of sad, but such is the nature of online forums. — I like sushi

If there's something else that's been raised, let me know. Perhaps I missed it. But I'm not seeing anything else except his misunderstandings and various perplexed responses, mine included.

If one or two excrescent lines of barely engaged questions amounts to 'critique' then I can only wish for better critics.

The length of a reply isn't directly proportional to its seriousness or insightfulness. Sometimes you need to ask clarificatory questions so that you know what your interlocutor is talking about.

Long, angry ideological screeds are often less 'engaged' than brief Socratic questions, because they show a lack of seriousness in actually listening to the person you're talking to (and being willing to learn something).

Anyway, I'm leaving, but my advice would be: read another article.

Oy vey, off you go, Socrates.

And when the specifics amount to "it was probs for navigation or something", that's not science, that's beer room speculation over a bong. — StreetlightX

Regarding your confusion about what is being discussed regarding navigation (quoting the one article you've half-read and completely failed to understand):

"The question is whether particular components of the functioning of FLN are adaptations for language, specifically acted upon by natural selection— or, even more broadly, whether FLN evolved for reasons other than communication. [...] Comparative work has generally focused on animal communication or the capacity to acquire a human-created language. If, however, one entertains the hypothesis that recursion evolved to solve other computational problems such as navigation, number quantification, or social relationships, then it is possible that other animals have such abilities, but our research efforts have been targeted at an overly narrow search space (Fig. 3)." (my emphasis)
"This discovery, in turn, would open the door to another suite of puzzles: Why did humans, but no other animal, take the power of recursion to create an open-ended and limitless system of communication? Why does our system of recursion operate over a broader range of elements or inputs (e.g., numbers, words) than other animals?[...] Either way, these are testable hypotheses, a refrain that highlights the importance of comparative approaches to the faculty of language."

Regarding your confusion about "adaptation":

"The question is not whether FLN in toto is adaptive. By allowing us to communicate an endless variety of thoughts, recursion is clearly an adaptive computation."
[...] "Hypothesis 3 raises the possibility that structural details of FLN may result from such preexisting constraints, rather than from direct shaping by natural selection targeted specifically at communication. Insofar as this proves to be true, such structural details are not, strictly speaking, adaptations at all."

Regarding your confusion that "language evolved for reasons other than language":

"Although many aspects of FLB very likely arose in this manner, the important issue for these hypotheses is whether a series of gradual modifications could lead eventually to the capacity of language for infinite generativity. Despite the inarguable existence of a broadly shared base of homologous mechanisms involved in FLB, minor modifications to this foundational system alone seem inadequate to generate the fundamental difference— discrete infinity— between language and all known forms of animal communication." (My emphasis)

"Discrete infinity and constraints on learning. The data summarized thus far, although far from complete, provide overall support for the position of continuity between humans and other animals in terms of FLB. However, we have not yet addressed one issue that many regard as lying at the heart of language: its capacity for limitless expressive power, captured by the notion of discrete infinity. It seems relatively clear, after nearly a century of intensive research on animal communication, that no species other than humans has a comparable capacity to recombine meaningful units into an unlimited variety of larger structures, each differing systematically in meaning."

It gets a little boring correcting (deliberate) mischaracterizations, but I'm reserving hope that there may eventually be something interesting that comes out of this.

Thanks for all the quotes to confirm what I've said :)

So you're clueless. Fair enough.

"Language evolved for reasons other than language." LOL. Thanks for the laughs.

I’m very interested in how we distinguish between general communication and language. — I like sushi

One way of distinguishing is to analyze a property of all human languages: that of recursive enumeration. The ability, as Von Humboldt noted, of using finite means for infinite ends -- shared with the number system -- appears to be a unique, innate property of human beings. Communication, on the other hand, is a broader conception and one that is indeed shared with many other species, down to insects.

You've done a decently impressive job of parrying @StreetlightX's flowery, loquacious, ideological and emotionally charged laughable bookworm bullshit, so I wouldn't worry too much. Welcome to the war.

Thank you. Hardly a "war," though. (For it to be a war, you need an opponent of some kind. StreetlightX is still stuck in intellectual adolescence -- the type that'll call Aristotle an "idiot" for such-and-such a reason. I don't take that seriously.)

But I'm glad my responses prove interesting to the others who are reading this thread -- that was my hope.

To be fair, I don't think @StreetlightX is an intellectual adolescent, as much as I dislike the @apokrisis style of (non)argument.

Premises:
1) Language is not communication.
2) Only human beings have a capacity for language.

Implication: human beings dominate Earth.

Does the implication sound familiar?
Is anyone triggered by it?
Is anyone surprised that it generates controversy?
Who holds the majority opinion regarding soundness?
Does it boil down to belief?

Thank you. Hardly a "war," though. (For it to be a war, you need an opponent of some kind. StreetlightX is still stuck in intellectual adolescence -- the type that'll call Aristotle an "idiot" for such-and-such a reason. I don't take that seriously.)

But I'm glad my responses prove interesting to the others who are reading this thread -- that was my hope. — Xtrix

I do find this debate fascinating. Language and the evolution of language specifically, has always been a fascinating subject to me. You defend the Chomskyean idea well as to what makes a language a language vs. simply a communication system. It seems Chomsky was trying to connect the idea that the FLN may have been an exaptation that allowed for a number of "mental" capabilities that carried over to language abilities. The implication is that tying the FLN to an origin just in communication would be an error and to "take the bait" of mistaking the consequence for its cause. Tool-making and better social awareness are good candidates to start as, based on the evidence, these two forces were most evident for focus in early humans. I had a thread awhile back about what the origin of human deliberation was. That is to say, our degree of freedom of choices as opposed to ironclad if/then responses (mostly seen in other animals). Deliberative thinking may also have something to do with FLN. What would cause a species to need such a high degree of deliberation, and what would cause such freedom of action? Well the cause might be something like a FLN and the reason for the FLN might be factors such as tool-making and more complex social awareness.

Premises:
1) Language is not communication.
2) Only human beings have a capacity for language.

Implication: human beings dominate Earth.

Does the implication sound familiar?
Is anyone triggered by it?
Is anyone surprised that it generates controversy?
Who holds the majority opinion regarding soundness?
Does it boil down to belief? — Galuchat

(1) The core element of language isn't communication. Communication is one aspect of language.
(2) So far as we know, only human beings have this capacity.

Human beings dominating Earth isn't really an implication, it's a fact. These days, a very unfortunate fact.

To be fair, I don't think StreetlightX is an intellectual adolescent — Galuchat

Anyone who refuses to read the very person he thinks he's criticizing, consumes nothing but second-hand interpretations, throws around insults, all with the airs of superiority -- is indeed intellectually adolescent. I was the same way when I was younger. I would read a few popular books and articles critical of some view, and then felt as if I acquired some special knowledge which those others -- those stupid teachers, professors, and other such followers of this view -- had failed to do.

Turns out, people like that are a dime a dozen.

It seems Chomsky was trying to connect the idea that the FLN may have been an exaptation that allowed for a number of "mental" capabilities that carried over to language abilities. The implication is that tying the FLN to an origin just in communication would be an error and to "take the bait" of mistaking the consequence for its cause. — schopenhauer1

Exactly right. And perhaps an exaptation not only language, but arithmetic, music, etc. All unique properties of humans, all with this property that defines FLN.

Take arithmetic. All humans have arithmetical capacity, for example. But it's almost never been used. Alfred Russel Wallace pointed this out.

If you take the core computational principle of language -- Merge -- and you restrict the lexicon to a single element, you get arithmetic. So it could be that it simply piggybacked off language -- which wouldn't be a big surprise, as it's another digital infinite system (which are very rare in nature).

Music -- same thing. There's gotta be a "UM" to this as well. Maybe it's a separate evolution, but maybe it just piggybacked off language.

Communication must have come much later in evolution by this perspective, as what evolved was a digital infinite system (an I-Language) which eventually spread genetically in the community and was mapped onto the sensorimotor system

Well the cause might be something like a FLN and the reason for the FLN might be factors such as tool-making and more complex social awareness. — schopenhauer1

Whatever happened, it had to be useful enough to spread in the community. That's a given, otherwise we wouldn't be here -- whatever the story. As to what selective advantage this had, yes those are all good suggestions.

Whatever happened, it had to be useful enough to spread in the community. That's a given, otherwise we wouldn't be here -- whatever the story. As to what selective advantage this had, yes those are all good suggestions. — Xtrix

I think this is very plausible. However, I can also envision a more social reason for language origins vs. the purely mental exaptation described by Chomsky. That is not to say I am stepping back completely with the idea of a FLN that is the genetic basis for language but rather that the origins of the FLN could be for social reasons (which translated easily to communication later). I have two scenarios here. The first is the non-exaptation (more amenable to social learning and later communication). The second is more Chomskyean in that it is more purely an exaptation that became selected for in its broad way that eventually led to language.

1) Learning strategies of cultural collaboration pushed language: It could be that goal-directedness is the primary cause for both better social awareness AND better tool-making skills. A chimp can observe, practice, and repeat it seems when making simple tools. Why can't they make more complex tools though? Well the tools they can produce are in the limit of this model of observe, practice, repeat. A capacity for something like Joint Attention (between primary caregiver, let's say or any socially anchored person in the infant's life), can allow for goal-directedness. That is to say, a better capacity for goal-directedness can lead to more complex tool-making. It can also help in understanding complex behaviors and Theory of Mind. Thus, various mutations, and allowances for epigenetic phenomena of interaction between genes/proteins and environment may have contributed to a more focused goal-directed behavior. This push for more goal-directed behavior favored a brain that can perform Merge functions such as in language, math, etc. because it allowed for more robust collaboration. Or conversely, the Merge function helped in creating goal-directedness and robust collaboration.

2) Pattern-recognition strategies: This is non-social specific. That is that somehow, the human animal needed to recognize patterns more easily (perhaps tool-making and social one-upsmanship). A series of quick genetic transitions occurred which allowed a sub-population to better manipulate the environment for complex tool and social awareness. This translated eventually to the linguistic abilities that generate recursion and Merge specifically. Also, with this pattern-recognition, perhaps it was better used for translating memory from working memory into explicit memory.

Again, all speculation here. The first approach would be more in-line with adaptationist approach rather than the strictly Chomskyean "mental space" that happened to translate to language later on. Both are somewhat indirect to the actual fact that language is now used to communicate amongst other things (internal dialogue that helps impose order on the environment).

I find that to be a very poor basis to work from. I’m not denying that recursion is important but surely there is more.

Nevertheless there has been arguments over whether or not ‘recursion’ is exclusive to humans:

http://gentnerlab.ucsd.edu/publications/bloomfieldEtAl2011.pdf

I’m much more inclined to follow the Cognitive Linguistics approach as it provides a better overview of several combined fields of interest. A problem here is that we could find ourselves making false distinctions as some mental faculty requires several others. I suspect that in many circumstances a ‘faculty’ to do x is necessarily due to a combination of ’factors’, yet individually these ‘factors’ are cognitively useful in some minuscule way and only when combined with other ‘factors’ produce a unique ‘faculty’.

As a example of what I mean eyes that were disconnected from the the occipital lobes would still be of use for managing the circadian rhythm.

Another idea would be to consider the effects of emotion in language. Clearly the basic communication in nature results from matters of survival and reproduction. Even trees communicate about diseases, yet don’t exactly ‘scream’ (although some reports have suggested this for media effect). Cries for help, sexual posturing and general ‘danger’ calls come with certain spacial signals attached. It could be that humans have intricated their emotional ‘vocabulary’ more than other animals and thus had the need to express a greater range of ‘signs’.

Monkeys have calls for ‘danger below’ or ‘danger above’, but I think the true step is in abstraction when a system of communication has a singular instance that relates to an abstract concept cleaved from a several embedded instances - so once the term ‘above’ or ‘below’ is uttered we’re talking at a very special stage in ‘communication’/‘language’.

Then there is “Theory of Mind”. Clearly children can pick up a certain level of competence when it comes to communicating prior to having a fully established “Theory of Mind” - note that feral children miss out on this (sadly/luckily there are few cases of this reported and fewer still that have been studied extensively due to lack of information).

Personally I find the idea of an innate faculty of language to be a useful distinction for investigation. Both sides of the argument have weight, butI cannot see either as being exclusively ‘true’ unless it is framed in a very specific manner.

I guess we have to be forgiving for opposing opinions. My studies on this topic are, relatively speaking, outdated. The last time I looked into this in this specific area was around 4 years ago.

The most fascinating cases I have seen in this area is still ‘The Man with no Language’, feral children and Piraha. On the research side of things I feel that the Cognitive Sciences have done more for linguistics over the past few decades than psychology or linguistics in and of themselves. Before that computational models certainly had a good hold on the subject and lately people have become more open to different ideas due to misrepresenting neuroscientific or generic studies to back up any and every claim (that’s gotten old for most people who look beyond pop-science though).

I find that to be a very poor basis to work from. I’m not denying that recursion is important but surely there is more. — I like sushi

Of course there's more. How language manifests itself is very complex. What I'm talking about is the uniquely human characteristic of language -- and clearly there is one, or else other animals could acquire language. Which, again, they can't do. So there's obviously something we have -- some genetically determined structure -- that allows us to pick out language from the environment, whereas a monkey or a songbird can't. That's not an easy question and we still don't know how it's done, but the point is learning something about the principles involved, and the only way to study this is to study what's acquired.

One property is that of recursive enumeration. Language is a digital infinite system, and any digital infinite system has embedded in it Merge. This is true for any language. The fact that language is structure-dependent is interesting as well -- and universal. Why don't we see linear-dependence?

Personally I find the idea of an innate faculty of language to be a useful distinction for investigation. Both sides of the argument have weight, butI cannot see either as being exclusively ‘true’ unless it is framed in a very specific manner. — I like sushi

There's no one serious out there that believes the faculty of language in humans isn't innate. No one. It's like arguing the visual system isn't innate. Of course there's a genetic component to language, unless we're angels. There isn't "both sides" to this argument any more than there's two sides to the whether the earth is spherical.

The most fascinating cases I have seen in this area is still ‘The Man with no Language’, feral children and Piraha. — I like sushi

In what area?

There's no one serious out there that believes the faculty of language in humans isn't innate. No one. It's like arguing the visual system isn't innate. Of course there's a genetic component to language, unless we're angels. There isn't "both sides" to this argument any more than there's two sides to the whether the earth is spherical. — Xtrix

I meant it may not be a faculty that is ‘language specific’. Meaning that ‘language’ may just be a spin-off of other systems.

In what area? — Xtrix

Linguistics. What else?

I meant it may not be a faculty that is ‘language specific’. Meaning that ‘language’ may just be a spin-off of other systems. — I like sushi

That "it" may not be a faculty that is language specific: what's the "it" refer to? There's no question other systems are involved in language.

Linguistics. What else? — I like sushi

Well nothing you gave as examples is really linguistics. Linguistics is a science. What you cite -- feral children, Piraha, and a case study --is anthropology, maybe having some significance for the study of language (not much, it turns out). But it's at the periphery at best, and as discussed before the Piraha case and the "Man Without Words" case is rife with confusions and are remarkably unscientific.

If this is what's most fascinating to you, I'd recommend first learning something more about linguistics. It doesn't fascinate you that language is structure-dependent? It's not fascinating how quickly children acquire language? That we're the only species that can acquire language? That it's been attempted to teach primates sign language (remember Nim Chimpsky)?

This video is 8 minutes. Worth watching, straight from the horse's mouth, and gives a good overview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLk47AMBdTA

That "it" may not be a faculty that is language specific: what's the "it" refer to? There's no question other systems are involved in language. — Xtrix

The point was that ‘language’ may not be the primary function. Chomsky himself practically admits this when he talks about Music or some other capacity. The neural basis maybe due to another primary faculty with ‘language’ piggybacking.

The case of the man with no language holds no interest for you? Not willing to speculate? It wasn’t a scientific study it was one woman ignoring (not knowing) that it was apparently ‘impossible’ to teach someone a language after adolescence - according to linguists. If the story isn’t fabricated then it backs up Chomsky’s position perhaps?

There have been plenty of studies into Piraha so to claim there is no science there is plain bloody-minded. Linguistics is a very young ‘science’. There is no conclusive evidence for a lack of ‘recursion’ within that language to date - that is the point of being scientific rather than dismissive.

I’m not willing to jump the gun. Chomsky in that clip using words like ‘seems’, ‘according to’ and ‘probably’ for good reason. When in comes cognitive anthropology Renfrew is a good place to begin.

If this is what's most fascinating to you, I'd recommend first learning something more about linguistics. It doesn't fascinate you that language is structure-dependent? It's not fascinating how quickly children acquire language? That we're the only species that can acquire language? That it's been attempted to teach primates sign language (remember Nim Chimpsky)? — Xtrix

You’re not talking to Streetlight anymore. I’m not here to debate Chomsky’s views. I wanted to expand the discussion beyond a boring is Chomsky right or wrong. I side with the view that language is at least mostly an innate faculty, but I’m not entirely convinced that language is really worth looking at as some ‘separate’ function of human cognition.

I’ve read more than enough to have a basic understanding of the field of linguistics. I’m mostly interested in cognitive linguistics and educational linguistics, but also have interest in formal linguistics and functional linguistics.

The point was that ‘language’ may not be the primary function. Chomsky himself practically admits this when he talks about Music or some other capacity. The neural basis maybe due to another primary faculty with ‘language’ piggybacking. — I like sushi

As I said before, music and arithmetic may have evolved separately, or they could be piggybacking off of language. There's a much more plausible reason for believing language evolved first and the others are derivative in some way. This is what Chomsky is saying when he discusses music and arithmetic.

True, Merge may have been used in other ways, as was discussed in the Science article.

The case of the man with no language holds no interest for you? Not willing to speculate? — I like sushi

It's interesting, sure. We can speculate all day long, but why pick out one strange case study to base your interest in linguistics? (So far, these are the examples you've mentioned.) They're not very sceintific or even really linguistics.

It wasn’t a scientific study it was one woman ignoring (not knowing) that it was apparently ‘impossible’ to teach someone a language after adolescence - according to linguists. If the story isn’t fabricated then it backs up Chomsky’s position perhaps? — I like sushi

It doesn't really have much to say about Chomsky's position concerning UG, but his wife did a lot of study on language acquisition in children and he's held the position that there's a critical period for learning language, yes. So if it's possible to teach someone a language when they've been exposed to no language all their lives, then yes that's very interesting and would indicate that perhaps there is no critical period, depending on the level of sophistication a language gets acquired. But it's impossible to tell from this case study.

Much more serious work has been done that indicates the opposite, like the one I mentioned about the deafblind: it seems like the limit is roughly 18 months of age, after which it's impossible to acquire. I wonder: is THAT not fascinating? It should be, as there's much more evidence for it. The fact that you pick out these sensational cases indicates to me you're not very serious about learning much about the field of linguistics.

There have been plenty of studies into Piraha so to claim there is no science there is plain bloody-minded. Linguistics is a very young ‘science’. There is no conclusive evidence for a lack of ‘recursion’ within that language to date - that is the point of being scientific rather than dismissive. — I like sushi

I agree, there is no conclusive evidence, yet it is often claimed that there is. And even if there was, it wouldn't matter to what Chomsky is talking about. So it's an interesting study in anthropology.

I side with the view that language is at least mostly an innate faculty, but I’m not entirely convinced that language is really worth looking at as some ‘separate’ function of human cognition. — I like sushi

Well fine, but that's not saying much. Of course you agree language is something separate from, say, digestion. The visual system is separate from the circulatory system as an object of study. Are there overlaps and interactions? Yes, of course. I don't disagree with that. But we're trying to find out what language is and what the principles underlying it are.

The word "function" is used very loosely anyway, so we have to be careful. Is the function of our skeleton for motion or to keep our organs from falling down, for example? The function of language has always been thought to be for communication, as you know. I just think that's completely wrong, which is where this thread started. We could go into that a little more maybe, but otherwise I'm not seeing what the real issue is here, other than clearing away confusions.

The function of language has always been thought to be for communication, as you know. I just think that's completely wrong, which is where this thread started. — Xtrix

I may have missed it (I’ve realised my reading of posts is a bit dodgy at times) but if it’s not communication then what is it?

I may have missed it (I’ve realised my reading of posts is a bit dodgy at times) but if it’s not communication then what is it? — Brett

Well when looking at the "function" of something, as vague as that notion is, what's usually done is to look at characteristic use to give you some insight in to the object's function. So let's do the same thing with language. What's the characteristic use?

Turns out we've discussed this before: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/364151

Turns out we've discussed this before: — Xtrix

Yes, but I didn’t feel I’d made any ground.

Ok, so I'll repeat: What's the characteristic use of language?

So let's do the same thing with language. What's the characteristic use? — Xtrix

It seems to have different uses: enquiring, confirming, emoting.

It seems to have different uses: enquiring, confirming, emoting. — Brett

I'm not sure what "confirming" refers to here. "Emoting" is also vague -- one can emote without language. Animals can emote as well in this sense. Furthermore, one can communicate emotions without language -- through a hairstyle, by slamming doors, by mien, by gait, etc.

Regardless, to say these are characteristic uses of language is just a mistake. When looking at language's characteristic use, just statistically speaking, it's for thought, not communication. Very little gets externalized, and [most of] what does get externalized is only communication in a strange sense -- what's usually called "phatic" communication -- hardly exchanging information in any sense that's usually believed.