Re: Origins of human thought

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jamesb@hgu.mrc.ac.uk writes:

>A really good down to earth book on all of this kind of gubbins is "The
>Ape That Spoke" by John McCrone, which argues that it was the discovery
>of language that allowed abstract thought and self-consciousness to
>develop.

Deacon puts beginnings of speech as far back as two million years
ago. Even today vervet monkeys have been observed to make about
30 different sounds. That is already some kind of a language.

And there's a long way from vervet monkeys to us.

See Evolution of Language (Hawkins and Gell-Man) for Deacon's
article. BTW, Gell-Man is a Nobel laureate in physics and Hawkins
is a well-known linguist. Santa Fe institute has published many
books on "complexity". They are well worth reading.

-- 



				Regards, Mark

				http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey

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