0128 The authors warn the reader.  There is no “progress” to evolution.  But, there are trends.

There is no “progress” for creatures that make their living within one ecology and one environment.  Why?  Ecologies and environments are always changing.

But, what of a genus whose ultimate niche is the potential of triadic relations?

And, what if signs are triadic relations?

Every ecology and environment is perfused with signs.

Plus, once the southern apes are on their feet, their hands are free for talking.

Then, southern apes hand-talk while cooperating with one another on team activities.

Culture is perfused with signs.

0129 The authors offer another warning.  Runaway natural selection can occur.  Consider the utter uselessness of the beautiful and eye-catching tail of the male peacock.  Yes, it is useless except for one problem.  The female peacocks are impressed by big, beautiful, eye-catching displays.

Is the runaway character of talk similar to the runaway character of the peacock’s tail… or should I say?… the peacock hen’s expectations.

0130 Speech is added as adornment to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.  Perhaps, sexual selection is involved.  Perhaps not.  Why?  The adornment of speech adds a strange semiotic ingredient, a spice, so to speak, to the semiotics of hand talk.  Without letting go of the iconic and indexal character of hand talk, speech adds a symbolic richness, as if the gestural words are distinct from one another, not because of habit, but because they are wrapped in distinct envelopes of formant frequencies.  Each hand talk word images and indicates a referent that can be pictured or pointed to.  But, the addition of speech as an adornment adds a situational expression.

0131 A situational expression?

Sort of like the tail of the male peacock?

Uh oh, is this the start of runaway natural selection?

0132 What happens to humans during the Late Paleolithic, the Epipaleolithic and the Early and the (start of) Developed Neolithic?

Are the archaeological sites of Goblecki Tepe, Neolithic Jericho, Catal Huyuk and Stonehenge dramatic achievements of hand-speech talking cultures?

What is notable about all these sites?

These sites belong to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

These cultures never clearly develop unconstrained social complexity.  Rather, these cultures seem to evaporate as civilization appears in Mesopotamia, then Egypt, then India, and then China.

0133 Towards the end of chapter seven, the authors introduce topics that apply to our current Lebenswelt.

If the authors had been familiar with Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall (or at least, the simple proposal offered in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace), then they would have heard that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0134 There is a twist in human evolution.

Here is a picture.