On Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:27:36 -0800 Keith Lofstrom <[email protected]> dijo:
>We assume humans are smart because we can process symbols and >a cat cannot, but our symbolic capabilities are a recent and >minor evolutionary adaptation that overlays our unique social >capabilities. A minor clarification: No evolution was involved in the development of reading and writing. Learning to read involves neuronal recycling; that is, we press into service parts of the already-evolved image processing area of the brain (mostly the angular gyrus). Writing systems have been with us for not much more than 5,000 years, but a man from 10,000 years ago could have learned to read and write as effectively as a present day human, given a writing system for his language and someone to instruct him in its use. Having said that, a great deal of fascinating evolution was involved in the development of language itself. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
