Language and Human Behavior (The Jessie and John Danz Lectures)

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According to Derek Bickerton, language is not simply for communication, it is the syntax of human consciousness. In this intriguing look at the origins of consciousness, Bickerton offers a tantalizing alternative to the theories of sociobiologists such as E. O. Wilson and strong artificial intelligence theorists such as Daniel Dennett: Syntax, as hard-wired into the brain, is what distinguishes the consciousness of modern humans from that of animals and human ancestors. A remarkably accessible argument and sure to stir up debate for some time to come.

Customer Reviews:

Talking Apes.......2007-06-12

By any measure, humans are pretty amazing animals. Only humans build cities, drive cars, fly airplanes, surf the Internet and write book reviews to post on Amazon. Clearly intelligence is what underlies all these abilities, but where does our intellectual endowment come from? The standard explanation has to do with brain-to-body ratio, which is far greater in humans than in any other species. On this view, our big brains make us more intelligent, giving us the ability to solve problems, make plans and communicate with each other effectively. Because it seems obvious that intelligence is advantageous to survival, it is assumed that it would be selected for and that evolution would push hominids towards larger and larger brains.

However, linguist Derek Bickerton takes issue with the standard model. In particular with regard to the relationship between intelligence and language, he believes the evolutionary scientists have the process backwards. Instead of viewing language as a product of intelligence, Bickerton argues instead that intelligence is a product of language. In "Language and Human Behavior," Bickerton presents the case that humans stumbled upon language, which then drove brain expansion and intelligence.

Bickerton argues that language evolved in two stages, and that "fossils" of the first stage still exist today. The distinction he makes here is between proto-language and full language. Proto-language has a limited vocabulary and no syntax; it is spoken in a halting fashion and has limited range of expression compared to full language. Full language, other the other hand, is represented by English, Chinese, or any other language spoken in the world. It also includes most signed languages, as well as the languages of so-called "primitive" peoples. (It should be noted that while their technologies are primitive compared to ours, their languages are every bit as complex.)

The speech of young children is one example of proto-language. From about one year of age until around age three, children's vocabularies are extremely limited, and the utterances they produce are simple, typically consisting of a single word or a two-to-three word string. A second example of proto-language is pidgins. When adults who do not speak a common language are forced to live and work together, they quickly develop a simple communication system consisting of a small vocabulary and virtually no syntax. Pidgins have arisen naturally many times over recorded history. A third example of proto-language comes from attempts to teach language to apes. In some cases, primates (and even a parrot) have been able to learn a vocabulary of several hundred words that they can understand and produce; however, they never seem to pick up on the rules of syntax. Finally, some mentally disabled and aphasics are only able to produce short, halting utterances with the same characteristics of proto-language.

Bickerton reviews the evidence on human evolution and argues that a punctuated-equilibrium approach best explains the data. Technological advancement (as judged by tool remains) has proceeded in a stepwise fashion from homo habilis to homo erectus to homo sapiens. That is, there is some technological advancement at the rise of each new species, followed by a long period of stagnation. And then around fifty thousand years ago there was a "great leap forward," from which time human technology has been advancing apace. Bickerton maintains that such a fossil record is inconsistent with a gradualist approach. Rather, some important change occurred two million years ago in homo habilis, and then again in homo sapiens fifty thousand years ago.

What made homo habilis different from any other primate, Bickerton speculates, is proto-language. Having stumbled upon a simple communication system, homo habilis was now able to coordinate group activity toward directed goals. Just as half an eye is better than no eye at all, proto-language gave homo habilis a significant evolutionary advantage. It also gave them a means for thinking out problems.

Continuing in this line of thought, Bickerton explains the great leap forward fifty thousand years ago by the advent of full language. A key difference between proto-language and full language is syntax, which allows for complex thought, including causal inferences. Thus, Bickerton argues, human intelligence arose from language, and not the other way around.

In the remainder of the book, Bickerton fleshes out his theory of linguistically driven intelligence. First, he makes a distinction between on-line and off-line thinking. On-line thinking involves direct interaction with the environment; inputs are received by the senses and processed by the brain, which then programs responses. Driving a car is a good example of on-line thinking in humans. Any creature with a nervous system engages in on-line thinking, although the degree of complexity varies greatly from species to species. Off-line thinking, on the other hand, is detached from the immediate environment, and operates on mental models instead. Making future plans, abstract problem solving and hypothetical supposition are all examples of off-line thinking. As far as we know, only humans engage in off-line thinking.

Language is related to thinking by the way each type of thinking is represented. On-line thinking works on sensory inputs and motor outputs, and Bickerton calls such a system a primary representational system. But off-line thinking operates on abstract representations that have no direct connection to the immediate environment. Bickerton calls such a system a secondary representational system, and he argues that it is language that provides these abstract representations.

Bickerton swims against the mainstream; however, his arguments are not without merit. Most evolutionary scientists do not fully appreciate the complexity of language and discount its importance, viewing it simply as a communication system only tangentially related to thinking and intelligence. Most linguists are woefully (and sometimes even blissfully) ignorant of human evolution, and do not even attempt to build linguistic theories that are evolutionary plausible. Bickerton is well versed in both fields, and so both evolutionary scientists and linguists alike should pay heed to what he has to say.

Human Cognition Came Out of Syntax.......2004-04-17

If you like Dennett's books, I urge you to read this one, "Language and Human Bahavior", by Bickerton. The whole book, which is not long, developes a single argument clearly and cogently. It is Vytgotsky's argument (see "Thought and Language" written in 1934), but updated and expanded. In Bickerton's own words: "human cognition came out of language" (page 160), though the title of this review is more exact. So Vygotsky from psychology and Bickerton from linguistics reach the same heretical conclusion. I believe very deeply that they are right.

Summary: The book is very interesting and very well written; it was easy reading for me. It deserves the best score and I strongly recommend it.

Intelligence came from language, not vice versa.......2000-06-12

It is easy to suspect that we humans can talk because we have smart brains. Bickerton instead argues that as our brains developed the capacity for speech we thereby became smart. Like other animals we have "on-line" thinking to help us survive. This consists of sensory('objective') knowledge of the world and ('subjective') inner states of consciousness. These latter are sometimes automatic responses to sensory knowledge --when you see a lion slinking, run! Sometimes they are awareness of inner states such as pain or body position. On-line thinking is automatic, either instinctual or a kind of learned stimulus-response process. But humans also have "off-line" consciousness. This consists of mental representations of the world and of ourselves, but even of events that are not really occuring. We can think about things not present to us, far away or in the past or in possible futures. So we can evaluate possibilities and make choices in our head; we can plan ahead. Bickerton uses his expertise in pidgin and creole languages to compare different kinds of thought. By this he shows that full "online" thinking is much more than koko, washoe, and kanzi, the sign-using primates (and two-year old children for that matter) are able to do. How he gets from pidgin and creoles to his conclusions is a major aspect of the book. He does it clearly and elegantly. Overall, he argues that as the mind developed capacity for full language, it was also developing the capacity to formulate, hold on to, and manipulate concepts and the relations among them. This language skill is also skill at thinking. So as the human brain developed the structures and connections to make language possible, this created the possibility of offline thought--the power to manipulate ideas well beyond the limits of ordinary "online" sensory experience and flash responses to those experiences.

The Origins of Meaning (Language in the Light of Evolution)

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The Origins of Meaning (Language in the Light of Evolution)
James Hurford
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0199207852

Book Description

In this, the first of two ground-breaking volumes on the nature of language in the light of the way it evolved, James Hurford looks at how the world first came to have a meaning in the minds of animals and how in humans this meaning eventually came to be expressed as language. He reviews a mass of evidence to show how close some animals, especially primates and more especially apes, are to the brink of human language. Apes may not talk to us but they construct rich cognitive representations of the world around them, and here, he shows, are the evolutionary seeds of abstract thought - the means of referring to objects, the memory of events, even elements of the propositional thinking philosophers have hitherto reserved for humans. What then, he asks, is the evolutionary path between the non-speaking minds of apes and our own speaking minds? Why don't apes communicate the richness of their thoughts to each other? Why do humans alone have a unique disposition to reveal their thoughts in complex detail? Professor Hurford searches a wide range of evidence for the answers to these central questions, including degrees of trust, the role of hormones, the ability to read minds, and the willingness to cooperate. Expressing himself congenially in consistently colloquial language the author builds up a vivid picture of how mind, language, and meaning evolved over millions of years. His book is a landmark contribution to the understanding of linguistic and thinking processes, and the fullest account yet published of the evolution of language and communication. "A wonderful read - lucid, informative, and entertaining, while at the same time never talking down to the reader by sacrificing argumentation for the sake of 'simplicity'. Likely to be heralded as the major publication dealing with language evolution to date. Frederick J. Newmeyer, University of Washington

Policy-Based Autonomic Computing (Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies and Autonomic Computing)

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Policy-Based Autonomic Computing (Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies and Autonomic Computing)

Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Basel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3764385448

Book Description

Policy-based computing is one of many techniques used to implement autonomic computer systems. The business function is expressed in terms of workflow (logic + actions) or behavioural rules to be performed in response to certain situations, which is decoupled from the implementation mechanism. The mechanisms are fixed at design time, but the actual run-time behaviour is decided by the policy. This facilitates contextual awareness as the policy may take account of various environmental inputs from sensors and external software systems. Policy-based mechanisms are also very useful in specifying system behaviour -- such as when specifying Service Level Agreements, and subsequently monitoring whether these agreements have been adhered to.

Policy-based configuration is highly versatile and generally applicable across a very wide application space. When compared with other autonomics techniques, policies represent one of the lowest risk and lowest cost solutions; because there is relatively low complexity.

This book brings together various aspects of using policies in the context of autonomic computing. It contains papers that report novel contributions to policy-based computing within an autonomics context, along with survey articles that highlight research directions in policy languages, tools and frameworks to support the construction and management of autonomic systems.

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Semantic Theory of Evolution
M. Barbieri
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Cognitive Darwinism: rational-emotive therapy and the theory of neuronal group selection.: An article from: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics

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Cognitive Darwinism: rational-emotive therapy and the theory of neuronal group selection.: An article from: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics
Shawn F. Blau
Manufacturer: International Society for General Semantics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, published by International Society for General Semantics on December 22, 1993. The length of the article is 8632 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Some concepts in Gerald Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, particularly those pertaining to the cognitive realm, are related to Albert Ellis' theory of psychotherapy and personality, the rational-emotive therapy (RET) theory. Together, the two theories may be used to pinpoint emotional disturbances as the end result of some ideas about the world functioning on a specific neurological level of human consciousness.

Citation Details
Title: Cognitive Darwinism: rational-emotive therapy and the theory of neuronal group selection.
Author: Shawn F. Blau
Publication: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 1993
Publisher: International Society for General Semantics
Volume: v50 Issue: n4 Page: p403(39)

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Sinn, Erfahrung, Subjektivitat: Eine Untersuchung zur Evolution von Semantiken in der Systemtheorie, der Psychoanalyse und dem Szientismus (Epistemata)

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Sinn, Erfahrung, Subjektivitat: Eine Untersuchung zur Evolution von Semantiken in der Systemtheorie, der Psychoanalyse und dem Szientismus (Epistemata)
Harald Wasser
Manufacturer: Konigshausen & Neumann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Perfect Paperback

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Book Description

This volume explains the fundamental concepts and theoretical techniques used to understand the properties of quantum systems used to understand the properties of quantum systems having large numbers of degrees of freedom. A number of complimentary approaches are developed, including perturbation theory; nonpurturbative approximations based on functional integrals; general arguments based on order parameters; symmetry, and Fermi liquid theory; and stochastic methods. Each approach provides its own insights and quantitative capabilities, and in conjunction provide a powerful framework for understanding a wide variety of physical systems. Written at a level for graduate students with no prior background in manybody theory, this classic text is intended for physicists in solid state physics, field theory, atomic physics, condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, and nuclear physics.

Customer Reviews:

Clear, precise, and modern.......2002-09-11

A great physics book for field theory applied to condensed
matter and sometimes nuclear physics problems. The authors
are EXTREMELY careful mathematically and really don't skip
any steps or shove stuff under the rug; in fact, the first
chapter is just all math about how to do integrals and path
integrals and field integrals and deal with Grassman numbers.
A bit unusual for a physics book, but that's their style.

The rest of the book deals with the usual and other material:

zero-temperature Green's functions and perturbation theory
(for energy, Green's function, etc.) The treatment is detailed
and relatively exhaustive. Then there is the same for finite-
temperature. The earlier sections on linear response are
concise and one of the best treatments of the subject I have
seen leading directly to the fluctuation dissipation expression
(after this book I realized this vaunted "fluctuation-dissipation" that no one can explain is just
a straightforward thing about commutators and pert. theory).

The book also has other good stuff: a chapter on mean field theory, Landau-Ginzburg theory, order parameters, and a nice
discussion about spontaneous symmetry breaking that helps
clarify a bunch of stuff. Then there is a whole chapter on
further aspects of one-particle Green's functions (Dyson
equation, solving for poles, quasiparticles, satellites, etc.)
that is pretty good and gets the physical point across. There
is also a chapter on statistical (monte carlo, numerical, etc.)
methods for doing quantum many body problems. While some of
the methods are not the most up to date or modern, the basics
are all there (Monte Carlo, Hubbard-Strataonvich (spelling?),
inverting matrices via Monte Carlo, some stuff about lattice
systems, Langevin equation simulation for Monte Carlo, updating
problems, etc.) There is also a chapter on more advanced
functional integration stuff. Also there is a nice description
of the loop expansion and whatnot.

The book is very well written, has no errors as far as I can
tell, and is exhaustive on what it treats. The problems at
the end of the first few chapters deal with physics problems
and help build intuition whereas the texts in these chapters
are more formal. The book could use some more physical insights
sprinkled throughout, but that is not too much of a drawback.

The book is based on functional integration (Feynman integral)
methods for field theory: this is the modern way folks do it
and it is a powerful way of doing field theory both to
derive results, connect results, do expansions and what not,
and also for certain kinds of monte carl computations. So
having read this, the reader is up to date on a pretty modern
view of field theory in condensed matter (and somewhat on
nuclear physics).

Highly recommended unless you can't stand precise and long
mathematical treatments. My only misgiving is that sometimes
I wish the authors provided more physical insights for certain
concepts and gave some examples rather than "just the math";
but they do this in other parts of the book, so perhaps
my complaint, which is not that serious, is more about the
uneven way this is done. Nevertheless, this is 5/5 and a book
you will read many times and learn from many times.

An important book for beginner cond-mat physicists and more........2000-04-10

A very good introduction to the many particle systems, includes all from the basics of coherent states to very complex parts of theory.

Diagrammatics: Lectures on Selected Problems in Condensed Matter Theory

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Diagrammatics: Lectures on Selected Problems in Condensed Matter Theory
M. V. Sadovskii
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9812566392

Product Description

The introduction of quantum field theory methods has led to a kind of revolution in condensed matter theory. This resulted in the increased importance of Feynman diagrams or diagram technique. It has now become imperative for professionals in condensed matter theory to have a thorough knowledge of this method. There are many good books that cover the general aspects of diagrammatic methods. At the same time, there has been a rising need for books that describe calculations and methodical know how of specific problems for beginners in graduate and postgraduate courses. This unique collection of lectures addresses this need. The aim of these lectures is to demonstrate the application of the diagram technique to different problems of condensed matter theory. Some of these problems are not finally solved. But the development of results from any section of this book may serve as a starting point for a serious theoretical study.

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Problem Book in Quantum Field Theory
Voja Radovanovic
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540290621

Book Description

The Problem Book in Quantum Field Theory contains about 200 problems with solutions or hints that help students to improve their understanding and develop skills necessary for pursuing the subject. It deals with the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations, classical field theory, canonical quantization of scalar, Dirac and electromagnetic fields, the processes in the lowest order of perturbation theory, renormalization and regularization. The solutions are presented in a systematic and complete manner. The material covered and the level of exposition make the book appropriate for graduate and undergraduate students in physics, as well as for teachers and researchers.

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