0026 I now make a slight adjustment to the previous two-level interscope.  I replace the content-level “character” with the scientific term, “adaptation.

Here is a diagram of the result.

0027 In the realm of possibility, ‘something distinctive’_1b virtually situates ‘distinctive adaptations’_1a.

 I do not find a ‘distinctive something’_1b in Turbon’s article.

Instead, I find a litany of ‘distinctive adaptations’_1a.

0028 I examine section one, titled “The Essentials of the Evolution of Humankind”.  The section opens with a question, asking, “How can the technological and scientific output of different modern peoples be explained?”

Surely, that is a historical question.

0029 What about the time before history?

What about earlier species in the Homo genus?

For 700,000 years, australopithecines and early Homo used Oldewan stone tools.  Then, for 1,000,000 years, middle Homo erectus used Acheulean stone tools.  Finally, around 500,000 years ago, late Homo heidelbergensis and later, Homo neadertalis used more sophisticated suites of stone tools, again for a very long time.  Around 100,000 years ago, stone tools become very sophisticated and the Upper Paleolithic Revolution dawns.  The Upper Paleolithic associates to anatomically modern humans.

0030 Ah, that sounds more like an essential.  Stone tool use must be a distinctive adaptation_1a.

Here is where Turbon introduces the two previously-noted dyads in the style of actuality.

0031 Stone tools belong to extra-somatic culture.   Plus, stone tools are adaptive.  Stone tools allow humans to do activities that they otherwise could not.

Changes in human genetics must have facilitated a mind and a body that are capable of manufacturing and using stone tools.  However, the facilitation takes many, many generations, suggesting that stone tool use was one of many clever survival techniques practiced by Homo habilis, “handy man”, and other members of the Homo genus.

0032 So, I wonder, “Do all these clever survival techniques, these extra-somatic adaptations, have ‘something distinctive’ in common?”

0033 The last blog adds more nuance to the ongoing two-level interscope.

0034 Evolutionary scientists propose adaptations that solve problems in the Pleistocene environment.  Human genes somehow allow the phenotypes that carry these adaptations.

One adaptation is the use of Oldewan, then Acheulean, then more sophisticated stone tools.  This is not the only adaptation.  More on that later.

The body of Turbon’s article provides a litany of adaptations.

0035 In Section 1, hominins become smarter in general, with special intelligences mixed in.  So, a person can not only talk (which is smart) but knows a lot about something that is of interest (which is special intelligence).

Surely, both DNA and the environment of evolutionary adaptation, genetics and natural history, are relevant.  But, there is something more, as noted later in Turbon’s article, as well as in Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) Prehistory of Mind.

0035 In Section 2.1, language is an adaptation that increases adaptability.  

Here, Turbon refers to “language” as speech-alone talk.  Today, many evolutionary scientists acknowledge that it is difficult to formulate how language evolves in the milieu of speech.  However, as discussed in Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s book (2016) Why only Us?  More likely, “language”, evolves in the milieu of hand talk.I continue Turbon’s list in the next blog.

0036 Here are the adaptations proposed by Daniel Turbon in sections one and two of his paper, “The Distinctive Character of Human Being in Evolution”.

I continue.

0037 In Section 2.2, Turbon mentions brain reorganization and size increase, over very long periods of time.  The parietal and frontal lobes preferentially enlarge.  Encephalization increases.

There is more here than meets the eye.  The brain not only increases but reorganizes.  This is covered in Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) Prehistory of Mind.  The way hominins think changes over many, many generations.  So does the brain’s architecture.

In Section 2.3, Turbon attaches importance to the FoxP2 regulatory gene.  Mutations in the gene produce impediments to speech and writing.  Scientists link the FoxP2 gene to neuro-motor control of rapid recursive and coordinated actions.  Neanderthals and humans share identical FoxP2 gene sequences.  Turbon associates this gene to speech-alone talk.  The gene equally applies to hand talk.

0038 The dyad of the brain [adapts to] talk is covered in Comments on Derek Bickerton’s Book (2014) More Than Nature Needs.   Our brain to body ratio is large.  It’s so large as to seem to be more than necessary for survival.  But, for talking, that is a different matter.

Also, children pick up language with a paucity of clues.  More cognitive processing is needed for that.  The question is, “How to model linguistic communication, in order to account for how children bootstrap language use.”  The answer is wrestled with in Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?

0039 In section 3.1 and 3.2, Turbon discusses a potential concurrent adaptation in the domestication of fire (starting around 800,000 years ago) and advances in stone tool technologies (starting around 500,000 years ago).  There seems to be a transition, here.  Why do these two extra-somatic adaptations occur in tandem?

These questions are addressed in Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big.  Increasing neocortex size correlates to larger group sizes.  Larger group sizes correlate to larger brain size.  Do I detect a feedback loop?  Does this feedback loop ramp up with the adaptations of cooking and hunting with composite wood and stone tools?

0040 In Sections 4 and 5, Turbon discusses the evolution of the family.  Increasing encephalization means bigger heads.  In order to fit through the birth canal, big-brained babies are born early.  They are helpless infants.  Infant helplessness should lead to higher mortality in the dangerous environment of the open savannah.  The family is one adaptation that decreases risk for infants and children.  So are other social circles, such as the team, the band, and finally, the community.

0041 Finally, in Section 6, Turbon discusses altruism.

0042 In the previous blog, I considered the adaptations listed by Turbon, in addition to high-level cognition, extra-somatic culture and talk (language).

Here is the list.

0043 All these are adaptations.  Adaptations exploit a niche.  So, in the ongoing two level interscope, the distinctive character_1b sustaining a noumenal origin of human_2b in the normal context of human intuition_3b, must be the human niche_1b.  The human niche_1b, in turn, virtually situates Turbon’s list of adaptations_1a.

Here is the reconfigured interscope.

0044 What is the human niche_1b?

This is the central claim in the masterwork, The Human Niche.

The human niche_1b is the potential of triadic relations_1b.

0045 Every adaptation_1a detailed by Daniel Turbon exploits triadic relations_1b.

Once the origin of human beings_2b is appreciated in terms of signs, category-based nested forms, judgment and other triadic relations_1b, then our adaptations_1a appear like observable and measurable facets_2a of a single noumenon, the human niche_1b.

0046  Turbon’s appeal in the last sentence of his abstract receives has already been answered.

A Course on the Human Niche is available on the smashwords website.  Search the following terms on the internet: human niche course series Razie Mah smashwords.  Any reasonable browser will point the reader to the location containing A Course on the Human Niche.

0047 The course begins with a Primer on Natural Signs.  The medieval scholastic tradition ends, in the 1600s, and the philosophy of Charles Peirce begins, in the 1800s, with an inquiry into the nature of sign relations.  Signs, like all triadic relations, entangle the material world.  However, material and instrumental causalities cannot account for triadic relations.

0048 Then, the course offers commentaries on four books by modern thinkers on human evolution.  These commentaries are:

Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big

Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) Prehistory of Mind

Comments on Derek Bickerton’s Book (2014) More Than Nature Needs

Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?

0049 The course wraps up with the masterwork, The Human Niche.

0050 In sum, A Course on the Human Niche, offers an approach to the alignment of philosophy and science dwelling in the heart of Turbon’s essay.