Abstract
The evolution of human symbolic capacity must have been very rapid even in some intermediate stage (e.g. the proto-symbolic behavior of Homo erectus). Such a rapid process requires a runaway model. The type of very selective and hyperbolically growing self-organization called “hypercyle” by Eigen and Schuster could explain the rapidity and depth of the evolutionary process, whereas traditional runaway models of sexual selection seem to be rather implausible in the case of symbolic evolution. We assume two levels: at the first level the species is adapted to ecological demands and accumulates the effects of this process in the genome. At the second level a kind of social/cultural knowledge is accumulated via a set of symbolic forms, one of which is language. Bühler’s model of three basic functions of signs can also be elaborated so that its cyclic structure becomes apparent. We assume that the hypercyclic process of semiosis and functional differentiation was triggered in 2 my BP (with the Homo erectus) and got more and more speed with the species Homo sapiens and later. The consequences for the evolutionary stratification of human languages will be drawn in the last section of the paper. The basic aim of the paper is to provide a semiotic (and not just a linguistic) explanation of the origin of language which can be linked to relevant models in evolutionary biology and which exploits the possibilities contained in self-organizing systems.
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Notes
Niemitz (2004) rejects the aquatic ape narrative and replaces it by an amphibian ape narrative. In both cases early hominids would have found their food in shallow water, and wading (or short time swimming) would have been prevalent modes of locomotion. The causal link to phonic communication remains rather obscure, although this type of locomotion could have repressed earlier gestured codes.
As almost 4 billion years lie between the origins of type (3) and (4), one can consider intermediate stages: (3a) the origin of eukaryotes (2 billion years), (3b) the origin of animals, the so-called Cambrian revolution (530 my). We identify the evolution of the genetic code as the centre of this question.
A domain between phylogeny and ontogeny concerns the historical cycles of cultural stability (dominance) and change (loss of dominance).
Homo habilis had brain sizes ranging from 580 to 750 ccm and their brains were just a little larger than the brain of great apes (chimpanzee, gorilla, orang-utan; below 500 ccm (cf. Martin 1998: 51). Before the Homo habilis was discovered researchers had postulated that the lower limit for a brain capable of language and linguistic cognition was 800 ccm. The brains of Homo erectus range from 727 to 1251 ccm.
Wilson a.o. had in 1987 computed that the human Eve had lived 200,000 y ago. The new calibration by Stoneking a.o. (1993) showed a middle of age estimation near 130,000 (but with a fringe of uncertainty between 60,000 and 400,000). As the migration of Homo sapiens to Eurasia began between 70,000 and 60,000 years ago and no significant differences in the capacity for language appeared, 70,000 y BP should be the limit: at this time our modern capacity for language existed, but it is still possible that it had already existed 400,000 years ago. As the genetic bifurcation between the line leading to Homo neanderthaliensis and to Homo sapiens was probably 700,000 years ago, the first ones had probably a language capacity nearer to that of Homo erectus, although they may have refined it independently from Homo sapiens.
Since the 18th century hypotheses about a (cultural) invention of language has been put forward. The fact that no human population without language has been found contradicts such a hypothesis. Specific proposals of a language gene (cf. the discussion about FoxP2) have remained controversial. Possibly a number of genetic factors contributes cooperatively to the emergence of a mature language capacity in the young child prior to his/her acquisition of language (indirect genetic encoding is also typical for the brain; cf. Szathmáry 2006).
Chomsky reduces the semiotic capacity to a linguistic one. As he excludes also the semantic and pragmatic aspects of language, his proposals concern only some supposed formal syntactic devices underlying adult language use. Although grammaticalization can show the stepwise reduction of pragmatic (contextual) and semantic content, no language has exclusively highly grammaticalized (de-semanticized) patterns.
The brain-size of chimpanzees does not show the dramatic increase visible in the line leading from australopithecines to modern humans. It is, however, conceivable that during the first period both species could still mix genetically and chimpanzees have chosen another evolutionary strategy under the pressure of the Homo erectus populations in Africa, thus reducing their communicative capacities.
Linguistic theory from de Saussure (1916) to Chomsky had been conceived in opposition to the genetic (organic) thinking in historical linguistics. Before structuralism Whitney (1899: 4) had specified the purpose of linguistic science as follows: “It seeks to determine what language is in relation to thought, and how it came to sustain this relation; what keeps up its life and what has kept it in existence in past time, and even, if possible how it came into existence at all.” In a certain sense linguistic theory must go back some steps and question the structuralist “revolution” in the early 20th century.
In the discussion on the details of cyclic processes in the early evolution of life, debates exist which criticize as well as propose alternatives to the model of Eigen and Schuster. The fact that enzymatic cycles exist is, however, not controversial. Therefore, even if the specific mechanism of Eigen and Schuster’s hypercycle should be revised, the general features which are exploited in our application of their ideas remain relevant. If biosemiotics is a field where models must be proposed, criticized and revised, the same dynamics of model building should occur in molecular genetics.
Cf. Eigen and Schuster (1979: VII): “If we analyze the conditions of hypercyclic organization we immediately see their equivalence to the prerequisites of Darwinian selection. The latter is based on self-reproduction which is a kind of linear autocatalysis. The hypercycle is the next higher level in a hierarchy of autocatalytic systems (as shown in part A). It is made up of autocatalysts or reproduction cycles which are linked by cyclic catalysis, i.e. by another superimposed autocatalysis. Hence a hypercycle is based on non-linear (e.g. second or higher order) autocatalysis. […] On the other hand, hypercycles are by no means just abstract products of our mind. The principle is still retained in the process of RNA-phage infection, though there it appears to the closed world of the host cell. The phage genome upon translation provides a factor which acts as a subunit of the replicase complex, the other parts of which are recruited from host factors. This phage-encoded factor turns the enzyme into absolute phage specificity. In disregarding all RNAs from host origin the phage-specific replicase complex now represents a superimposed feedback loop for the autocatalytic amplification of the phage genome.”
Eigen and Schuster’s generalizations established already the analogy between genetic code and memory (both fix aspects of information about past events) before Dawkins (1994) proposed the pair gene-meme, which was further popularized by Blackmore (1999). López-García (2005) argues in favor of a more specific relation; the genetic code would be a pre-program for the design of human languages.
These processes have the consequence that language and other symbolic forms are not only individually cognized, but also achieve a secondary “objectivity”. This explains the traditional difficulties in the specification of the ontological status of language (as ‘parole’, ‘langue’, ‘fait social’ in Saussure’s terminology).
This idea also underlies the more specific story about the origin of language devised by Knight (1991). However, ritual behaviour is not reserved to ochre use and “sex strike by women”. It must have occurred much earlier (e.g. at the stage of the LCA) as primates show ritualization in grooming and sexual behaviour. It is only the hypercyclic reorganization which transformed simple rituals into a complex system of symbolic behaviour. The question of whether language was presupposed by complex ritual systems or followed their evolution remains an open question. The fact that linguistic systems are more universal than complicated ritual systems makes it plausible to assume a priority of language (see the next section).
In a similar line, but in the framework of symbolic interactionism, Niklas Luhman (1975) has proposed “generalized symbolic media”, where money/economy, power/politics and love/friendship appear as further types of symbolic behavior. He also establishes a link between art and rare objects/money. Cf. Wildgen (2004a: chapter 10).
In the smaller communities, which later came together in the Nile valley, specific mythical beliefs linked to animals or natural forces in the environment had reached a stable plateau of transmission (in rituals, art and oral traditions). This stable transmission is considered as the basic cycle. If several such traditions merge in a new civilization, they will first coexist and rival, later a more complex mythical structure can unite elements of the different mythical traditions into one corpus of beliefs and practices, which is now fixed by parallel and complementary rituals in different temples of the larger political and religious unity (in a dynasty of pharaohs). They can for some time form a stable compound, in which the mythical stories are brought together and cooperate to build a complex corpus of beliefs. This hypercyclic compound may, however, break down and give rise to a simpler and dominating myth, such as the religion of the sun god Aton introduced by Akhenaton in Egypt. The transition to monotheism and the elimination of the complex universe of polytheism became the major characteristic of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religion.
The Peirce-hierarchy applies already to lawful correlations at the atomic and the molecular level, i.e., an atom is a lawful binding of constituents in its kernel or a system of kernel and electrons (and valence patterns). For a human agent, this fact only becomes evident if it is formulated in a theory by a human agent. The philosophical difficulties regarding Peirce’s pan-semiotics cannot be discussed here.
They distinguish three big transitions: the world of RNA, the world of DNA, the world of language (ibidem). In Fig. 6 the worlds of RNA and DNA have been put together; in general the Peircean model is compatible with current evolutionary biology.
The “Ding an sich” (entity in itself), which Kant supposed to be inaccessible, may be assumed as a background. It does not, however, enter the process of semiosis that starts from the apprehended object/process.
The “levels” in Fig. 6 should distinguish between different distances to a basic type of learning consisting in individual processes of trial and error, which are not transmitted to others. As soon as transmission occurs, this may be due to teaching in practice or to teaching via language. The first is characteristic for chimpanzee “cultures” of nut cracking, the second for teaching in human cultures. If the teacher himself had no opportunity to test the knowledge he got symbolically, the distance may be further increased. Finally some types of purely symbolic learning may be totally disconnected from practical concerns. The distinction of levels can only indicate such in increase of distance to practice; this does not mean that discrete levels exist in reality.
Cf. for the role of compartments in chemical evolution: Eigen (1987: 227–237) and Maynard Smith and Szathmary (1995: 53). Biological membranes can separate different hypercycles and make them stable under deformation. One could extend this feature to the creation of symbolic forms in different societies. The processes of cultural evolution analyzed in Sect. 4 could be interpreted as a reorganization of social “compartments” in a larger society which subsumes many formerly independent cultural traditions.
The dream of Leibniz concerning a universal characteristic and the formal languages of modernity show this tendency. Cassirer called such a code “pure meaning” and implicitly made it the final goal of symbolic evolution, which is almost attained in mathematical physics.
If the rime of a poem belongs to a meta-level because the form of the message is poetically transformed to achieve specific features of the message (e.g. consonance), then a model of the sonnet in literary criticism is a meta-linguistic statement on the poetic function, itself a meta-function. A critique of literary criticism and its scientific strategies could add a further meta-level and so on.
“A person is a strong reciprocator if she is willing (1) to sacrifice resources to bestow benefits on those who have bestowed benefits (=strong positive reciprocity) and (a) to sacrifice resources to punish those who are not bestowing benefits in accordance with some social norm (strong negative reciprocity).” Fehr and Henrich (2003: 3).
The cooperative interaction of principles derived from combinatorial phonetics, complex word semantics and textual/conversational dynamics could profit from the hypercyclic mechanisms which have been applied in this article.
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Revised and augmented version of my contribution to the Cradle of Language Conference, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 7–10 Nov 2006
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Wildgen, W. Semiotic Hypercycles Driving the Evolution of Language. Axiomathes 18, 91–116 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-007-9020-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-007-9020-1