[Steve] Language implies communication between individuals and can't be invented by a single person.
[Arlo] Seems rather obvious, doesn't it? [Platt] I wonder what linguists say about the origin of language. [Arlo] There are many theories, as in any field. The one I find most promising (indeed, the one that begins with "shared attention") is Tomasello's account in "The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition". Check here (http://www.2think.org/humancognition.shtml) for a synopsis. For Tomasello (and this is where I think it ties very smoothly into Pirsig), symbolic activity (social activity) derives from a very particular neurobiological configuration that evolved over millenia of early-human existence. Like carbon's "feature" that DQ "latched onto", this neurobiological feature provided man with the ability to share his attention, something previously unavailable to man's behavioral repertoire. And, like carbon's bonding feature, this neurobiological component evolved for likely entirely different reasons (there was not a grand design to plan man's ability to use language), but became the springboard for DQ in the biological-social evolutionary leap. Because we can point to specific biological patterns that led into the formation of the social level, I think this evolutionary point-in-time captures the Biological-Social division completely. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
