Abstract
This symposium discusses J.-L. Dessalles's account of the evolution of language, which was presented in Why we Talk (OUP 2007).
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Recent models (Dessalles 2006a) avoid any explicit reference to status, as it emerges from social preferences. Individuals try to establish social bonds with relevant individuals. This is a good strategy if acquaintance with informed individuals is an asset (e.g., by avoiding being killed by surprise). In this context, advertising one’s relevance is a good strategy too.
I recently attributed these changes to the invention of new killing means, making prevention of surprise a condition for survival (Dessalles 2008b). In such a context, individuals who can demonstrate their ability to acquire information better and faster become invaluable friends. Note that this scenario departs from Bingham’s (2001) theory, in which the main effect of weapons is to enforce cooperation through retaliation within coalitions.
I would like to thank Kim Sterelny for his comments on this article.
It is however noteworthy that recipients of altruism are also at risk of being cheated when organisms involved in reciprocal interactions can fake altruism. For instance, among dance flies (Rhamphomyia sulcata) males sometimes give fake nuptial gifts (LeBas and Hockham 2005).
One should however note that models of the evolution of altruism by indirect reciprocity typically assume that organisms have a reputation and that when they decide whether to benefit other organisms, altruistic organisms take into consideration the reputation of these organisms.
It won’t have escaped the reader that according to this hypothesis, linguistic communication is scientific communication writ large. Dessalles notes the analogy.
Thanks to Eric Mandelbaum for this reference.
Dessalles is aware of this, but, puzzlingly, he does not seem to view this as a problem for his hypothesis.
Weisberg (2006) provides a nice example of robustness analysis regarding the Volterra Principle.
Superscripts denote indexes rather than exponents.
Given the dynamics of coalition formation, it is possible that some coalitions will be degenerate (i.e., containing only one member). When a coalition is degenerate, the people with whom a i is paired are drawn uniformly from \(P {\setminus}\{a_i\}.\) (And it is allowed for a i to interact with the same person more than once.) If coalition C i is not degenerate, then each of the k interactions for a i is determined as follows: a i is paired with someone drawn uniformly from \(C_i\setminus \{a_i\}\) with probability 0.6, and otherwise with someone drawn uniformly from \(P\setminus \{a_i\}.\)
Because individuals incur a cost when they attempt to speak relevantly, I assume all agents have a baseline fitness of 3. This insures that even if someone chooses to speak relevantly to others, and receives no benefit or status increase, he still has a positive fitness.
Here, I shall assume that a j is selected using a uniform probability distribution over the entire population.
Pawlowitsch (2007a) models the evolution of a proto-language in a finite population using a Moran process and shows that “efficient proto-languages are the only strategies that are protected by selection.” See also the discussion below in "Lewis sender-receiver games as a model of the evolution of language".
The population is of size 150 and 150·μ·3 ≈1.0035.
However, recall our discussion in "Local optimality and the evolution of language" about sender–receiver games with pooling and partial pooling equilibria. Partial pooling equilibria are not entirely reliable because they conflate states of the world, yet are still capable of being produced by evolutionary dynamics.
Vervets can be induced to ignore a particular monkey’s alarm call if it’s been shown repeatedly to be uncorrelated with the presence of a threat. However, this ‘trivializing’ response did not generalize to other monkeys, presumably because there was no reason to think they were lying too. Dessalles point is that trivialization occurs whether or not there’s reason to think a whopper has been told. I think he’s right that this is an important difference between us and other animals.
The name of Andrei Kolmogorov is involved again, but this is fortuitous.
This effect can be quantified. Unexpectedness varies as k 2 for a Laplace-Gauss distribution, where k is the number of standard deviations.
Darwin thought of differential reproduction of individuals. In the modern view, replicators are typically genetic mutations, but more broadly anything that replicates itself and has a causal effect on its own replication. Individual reproductive success is just an intermediary step in that causality.
I do not enter here into distinctions between evolutionary stable strategies, static and dynamic Nash equilibria, and the like, as these distinctions tend to blur in realistic noisy conditions.
Global suboptimality is characteristic of many situations involving cooperation. In the prisoner’s dilemma, both parties end up in a state that is less preferable that the cooperative state.
See for instance www.dessalles.fr/Evolife
One problem is that in McKenzie Alexander’s model, genes have systematically two effects: they control both the probability of behavior and its intensity. Such coupling should be avoided. In particular, individual quality has no effect on the probability of being perceived as relevant! Another problem is the choice of a linear selection function. When average fitness is high, the system is unable to provide significant selective advantage to mutants. There is also a problem with the intrinsic limitations of Moran processes, which implement mere imitation games. McKenzie Alexander partially corrected the problem by introducing mutations.
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Machery, E., Dessalles, JL., Cowie, F. et al. Symposium on J.-L. Dessalles’s Why we Talk (OUP, 2007): Precis by J.-L. Dessalles, commentaries by E. Machery, F. Cowie, and J. Alexander, Replies by J.-L. Dessalles. Biol Philos 25, 851–901 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-009-9168-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-009-9168-8