0274 My game of labeling adaptation and phenotype continues.

I imagine the following intersection for human evolution entering into my slot for species impressa_2a.  I ask myself,  “What is a sensible interpretation of the phenotype and adaptation for the era of joint intentionality, lasting from the beginning of bipedalism to the domestication of fire, covering from around 3.5 to around 0.8Myr?

Here is the topic for chapter three.

0275 What is the phenotype_2V and the adaptation_2H for the Era of Joint Intentionality,

What about my perception_2b?

0276 To begin, I consider contemporary chimpanzees hunting for monkeys.  They do not play this exercise when food is scarce.  Rather, they play for sport.  Hey, there are some monkeys around here.  Maybe, I… er… “we” can capture one and eat it raw.  Yes, each chimpanzee entertains the same judgment and is willing to go along with the others.

Off the troop of the willing goes.  Once they get around an isolated monkey, each positions himself to block an escape route.  The monkey takes one ill-fated path and one of the chimpanzees gets hold of it and then, runs off, in order to eat as much of the little critter as possible before the others demand their share.

0277 Does that sound like shared intentionality?

Yes and no.

Clearly, human collaborative efforts are very different.  Humans are willing to share.

Aren’t they?

0278 Here is a figure with my perception_2b.

0279 Tomasello envisions the opening of a new foraging niche, where collaboration pays off.  Mixed forest and savannah offer widely spaced, occasionally and locally rich, foods.  Bipedalism solves the widely spaced problem.  But, that is not enough.  One cannot walk and forage at the same time.

Bipedalism keys into a proximate niche.

Collaboration keys into an ultimate niche.

Why does collaboration become practical?

Rather than one individual foraging within a band, a team separates from the band and forages for its specialty. If successful, that team gathers more than each member of the team can eat.  The team refrains from eating their full and falling asleep.  Why?  The team is on a mission.  Gather food for me and my friends.  That is the obligation.  We work for food.

When more than one team operates at the same time, then collaborative foraging requires more than cooperation within each team.  It requires that teams cooperate as well.  Thus, the seeds of the next era are already germinating within the Era of Joint Intentionality.

0280 Tomasello calls the novel foraging strategy, “obligatory collaborative foraging”.

Of course, the modern term, “obligatory” means not having a choice.

But, that is not the real insight.  The real insight comes when “obligatory” means “obligation” and “obligation” means “responsibility”.

Teammates are responsible for one another.  Each member is more productive (and more likely to survive) when responding to content (the tasks at hand, clues to nearby predators, and so forth) and to situation (whether I or my teammate is near a cache or near danger).  Intentional signs are valued.

0281 As noted by Tomasello, hominin intentional signs build on the pantomime and pointing gestures of the prior era.  Indeed, these intentional signs become more and more routine.  At some point, they may be described as “hand talk“.  Hand talk consists of icons and indexes that are sufficiently distinct from one another that they are easily interpreted in the course of a team’s activities.

Hand-talk couples the sign-objects of intentional signs with the sign-vehicles of specifying signs.  Hand-talk is recognizable because it starts as iconic (pantomime) or indexal (pointing) natural signs. Hand-talk gestures become more and more facile, in both generation and interpretation, when they become distinct from one another.  A third natural sign, the symbol, enters into the picture because symbols are distinct from one another.  A symbol is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on habit, tradition, convention, law and so forth.  Symbols must be different from one another in order to… um… serve as symbols.

0282 Here is one way to think about the coupling of intentional sign-object and specifying sign-vehicle.  

The intentional sign-vehicle is a judgment.  Judgments are purely relational beings.  Therefore, they must be symbolic.  So, if one judgment occurs over and over again, then it is likely to be different…. er… distinct from other judgments that occur over and over again. So, the sign-object of the interventional sign will introduce symbolic features to hand talk.

The specifying sign-relation prefers icons and indexes, in order for the reference to be grounded in the real.  Icons and indexes inherently specify their referents.

Indeed, when a symbol is presented, reference is not obvious.  So, hominins prefer icons and indexes to initiate a specifying sign-vehicle, rather than the fact that one gesture-word is distinct from other gesture words.  Implicit abstraction connects hand-talk gesture to its referent.  The reference is recognized as something that one can picture or point to.  Grounded reference facilitates sensible construction.

When a team members are out and doing their business, they are not playing word-games.  Sensible construction is the order of the day.  Everyone should have the same perception when a teammate hand-talks.

0283 With this said, I would like to return to the game of presenting my perception of adaptation and phenotype, once again.

0284 Okay, joint attention adapts to a proximate and to an ultimate niche.

In terms of diverse proximate niches, each successful team produces its own specialized adaptations.  Each successful team gets better and better over generations.  Consequently, each team produces divergent evolution.

In terms of an ultimate niche, all teams have one feature in common.  Members of the team engage in hand talk.  So, even though each team develops its own “language”, all the team-languages have the common niche of triadic relations.  In particular, the interventional and specifying signs constitute the niche for all team-related proto-languages.  As such, all teams undergo convergent evolution.

0285 What about the adaptation of shared intentionality?

Joint attention is behavioral and describes how each team operates.

Shared intentionality is more… um… psychic and describes how each member within each team figures out what everyone else on the team is thinking at the moment.

0286 Surely, this adaptation has something to do with the exemplar sign.

In the scholastic exemplar sign, my species expressa_2b (SV_e) stands for a species intelligibilis_2c (SO_e) in regards to a normal context asking, “Does this make sense?”_3c operating on the potential of ‘contextualizing the situation’_1c (SI_e).

In Tomasello’s exemplar sign, my perception_2b (SV_e) stands for a judgment_2c (SO_e) in regards to the normal context of joint attention_3c operating on the potential of ‘shared intentionality’_1c (SI_e).

0287 Does that call for another perception_2b for era one?

Here is a picture.

0288 May I state the same material in a different way?

I am still looking at chapter three, concerning the Era of Joint Intentionality.

Here is my reading of the archaeological markers for this evolutionary era.  My associations are different than Tomasello’s.  During this time, the Pliocene passes into the Pleistocene.

0289 Tomasello asserts that the evolution of joint intentionality associates to the niche of obligate collaborative foraging.  This breakthrough insight associates to the social circle of “teams” in the social evolutionary framework of Robin Dunbar.

Razie Mah examines the importance of teams in Looking at Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Obligate collaborative foraging and team-workexploits of potentials of mixed forest and savannah between 3.5 and 0.8Myr.

0290 For Tomasello, obligate collaborative foraging entails two interrelated characteristics of teams: interdependence and social selection.  Interdependence describes what is happening within each team.  Social selection describes the way that each team is exclusive.  Each team excludes some members of the band, and later, community.  Interdependence expands the ability to exploit time-constrained opportunities.  Social selection reinforces two impressions.  We work for food.  I must compete with others for the opportunity to collaborate.

0291 Each of these characteristics is significant.

0292 First, interdependence entails working together towards a joint goal.  Tomasello offers the example of pursuing a stag.  A more appropriate example for the start of this era is indicated from the use of Oldowan stone tools.

Oldowan stone tools can be constructed at location by cleverly striking one rock against another in such a fashion that the stricken rock fragments, leaving a section with a sharp edge.  This sharp edge can then be used to scrape uneaten meat off the bones of large animals.  The sharp-edged core can also be used to break long bones, allowing the extraction of fatty bone marrow.  Lots of food can be gathered in a short time by the Oldowan stone-tool team.  

0293 Socially, the Oldowan stone-tool team has a joint goal that entails several individual roles.  A few labor with sharp stones while the others fend off vultures and (hopefully not) nastier scavengers.

Can the suite of roles be labeled “constrained social complexity”?

I suppose so.  Every team has a suite of roles… er… I mean to say… every team exhibits constrained social complexity.  Stepping back, a band’s or community’s suite of teams also constitutes constrained social complexity.

No early hominin can gesticulate the label, “constrained social complexity”, using hand talk.  What does one pantomime for “constrained”?  What does one point to for “social”?  I suppose that a shrug of the shoulders can be the hand-talk word for “complexity”.

[BRING CUPPED HANDS TOGETHER][POINT IN DIRECTION OF AUDIENCE][SHRUG SHOULDERS]

Oh, yeah.

0294 The Oldowan stone-tool team selects for individuals with particular cognitive and physiological capacities, such as the ability to keep on task despite distractions and the ability to intrinsically abstract the physics of rocks, sinews and bones.  Over generations of successes, these capacities become traits, because those who succeed have greater reproductive success.

Surprisingly, the Oldowan stone tool kit remains the same for hundreds of thousands of years.

0295 Not surprisingly, hominins eventually produce a more thoughtful stone tool, which archaeologists label, “the Acheulean core”.  Why come up with a new stone tool when Oldowan stone tools worked well enough?  I suspect that selection for the physiological and cognitive capacities for this particular teamwork produces novel adaptations.  The improvement is specific to the team.  In 1988, two evolutionary psychologists, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, coin a label for these narrow adaptations.  They fashion the term, “mental modules”.

0296 In this regard, see Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) The Prehistory of Mind (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0297 Ironically, in chapter five, Tomasello argues that mental modularity does not fit into current empirical evidence of the flexibility of human thinking.  But, what about inflexible human thinking?  What about accomplishing the work at hand?  Don’t evolved mental modules specifically attuned to performing certain tasks (and playing particular roles) come into the picture?

Yes, they do.  That is precisely what Tooby and Cosmides propose.  Even though Oldowan stone tools remain the same for hundreds of thousands of years, hominins slowly, unrecognizably, become better and better at the work at hand.  Indeed, they become better and better at mastering the content level of the three-level scholastic interscope for the way humans think.

0298 Here is a picture.

0299 What is involved in these slow adaptations into the proximate niches of obligate collaborative foraging and the ultimate niche of triadic relations?

Each team adapts to exploit a specific opportunity that shows up, on occasion and at varying locations, with regularity and abundance.  Each team selects for teammates expressing a specific suite of cognitive and physiological traits.  Over generations, each team selectively breeds hominins for its “modular” actions.

0300 To me, Tooby and Cosmides’s proposal that the hominin mind is a “Swiss-army knife” of specialized modulesaccords with Tomasello’s vision.

0300 Here is a diagram.

0301 Modularity theory predicts that teams_2b select for individuals capable of joining the team.  The team_2b presumes joint-attention_2a as an um… team-specific adaptation_2a.  The team_2b promotes cognitive developments relevant to that team’s particular challenges_2c.  Today, some cognitive psychologists label these suites of cognitive traits, “mental modules”.  

Teams_2b respond to opportunities in the proximate niche of the environment and ecology of mixed forest and savannah in Pliocene, then Pleistocene, eastern Africa.

Consequently, these mental modules are products of divergent evolution.

0302 Yet, all teams share a handful of traits in common.  Each displays interdependence.  Each entails social selection.  Plus, each contains hand-talk.  This hand-talk is practical, sensible, and aims to request, inform and share what is going on during the drama of team activities.  Each team has its own traditions for converting species intelligibilis_2c into species impressa_2a.  Members who cannot hand-talk are left off the team.

The ability of members of teams to hand talk evolves.  No matter what the team specializes in, team members become better and better at coupling interventional and specifying signs.  Plus, team members get better and better at performing exemplar signs.

These improvements are products of convergent evolution.

0303 Here is another picture of Tomasello’s vision for the ultimate human niche.

0304 What does this imply?

Modularity theory does not negate Tomasello’s scientific insights.

Hominins work in teams during obligatory collaborative foraging. Teams are diverse.

Joint attention_2a and shared intentionality_2a are foundational adaptations.

Hand-talk evolves within each team tradition.  Hand-talk adapts to an ultimate niche, the potential of triadic relations. Tomasello calls this niche, “sociogenesis”.  Proto-linguistic hand-talk and other semiotic processes associated with teamwork may have played a role in the brain reorganization that occurs at the time of the earliest appearance of the Homo genus, near the midpoint of the era of joint attention.

0305 Did I forget something?

In point 0290, I recall Tomasello’s crucial claim that teams involve interdependence and social selection.

In point 292, I say “first”, followed by a discussion on interdependence that lasts until point 0304.

So now, in the next point, 0306, I say “second” and discuss social selection.

0306 Second, what about social selection?

Hominins compete to cooperate.

From the outset, humans are phenotypically prepared to join a team, act with joint attention to goals, enter into roles appropriate to the moment, and figure out the roles that others on the team play.  In order to do this, one must arrive at a judgment.  One must also learn to gesture one’s judgment using the team’s tradition of hand-talk. Yes, each team evolves its own proto-language.

Most often hand-talk requests, informs and shares.

0307 So, how does one join a team?

Is an individual formally invited?  Does mom and dad make an arrangement with other moms and dads?  Does an individual sort of hang out, informally, until some sort of invitation manifests?

We ask the same questions today.  Plus, modern educators have no clue that we are honed by evolution to ask.  Indeed, in order to um… maintain their academic prerogatives, educators tend to prune the tree of life and limit the number of teams that children in “the system” can officially join.  Plus, educators want to monitor and control who joins the teams that they prescribe.

There is a contemporary word for this behavior.  The term is “gatekeeping”.

0308 In contrast, hominins adapt to a Lebenswelt of benevolent gatekeepers.  Gatekeeping is not formal, since hand-talk does not permit explicit abstraction.  There is no list of rules and requirements.  Instead, one person in the team permits an adept to tag along, offering encouragement and mitigating conflicts with other adepts.  If the adept proves incompetent for one particular team, the adept is simply not allowed to tag along, and enters into the orbit of another benevolent gatekeeper.

0309 Each team offers a different culture, in so far as it harbors different roles and joint goals.  These roles and goals are embedded in the nature of the activities.  No one can hand-talk the words, “roles” or “goals”.  These are explicit abstractions.  What is there to picture and point to with manual-brachial gestures?

The expectations and styles of each team should be obvious enough.

These are features that youngsters look for.

0310 Plus, there are lessons that transcend the team.  All teams belong to the community.  All teams promote human flourishing.  All teams compete for members.  All teams produce more than they consume.  All teams share their surplus harvests.

0311 So, what does this have to do with modern educational practices in 2024?

This question raises one of the most hilarious applications of Tomasello’s research.  Tomasello takes seriously the proposition that little human creatures, who end up trapped in the maws of a mechanical revolution in Western education, are designed by nature (some would say, creator) to inform, request and share information in team settings.

No wonder our current crop of educators love Marxism.  Children are the proletariat.  Teachers are the bourgeois who claim to represent their proletarian charges.  Consequently, when modern educators teach bigilibism to students trapped in desks, they merely promulgate the propaganda that supports the communist heroes that they see in the mirror.  In unison, they proclaim, “We are the self-anointed. We are your team. We represent you, the little proletarians, trapped in our system.”

0312 For more laughs along these lines, consider Razie Mah’s blog for June 1-9, 2023, titled, Looking at Betsy Devos’s Book (2022) “Hostages No More”.

0313 What about communication between teammates?

Obligate collaborative foraging involves teams.  Yet, joint attention_2a (in Tomasello’s vision) adapts to the sociogenesis of teams_1a, not by organizing them_1a, but by embodying them_1a.

But, if teams_1a are embodied by joint attention_2a as an adaptation, then the inquirer gets drawn into a tautology.  Joint attention_2a adapts to the teams that sociogenesis_1a creates.  But, sociogenesis_1a would not offer the team_1a as a possibility, unless joint attention_2a exists.

0314 How to get around this tautology?

In the Tomasello-Mah synthesis, joint attention_2b virtually situates an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a, which turns out to be triadic relations.

0315 The sociogenesis of teams_1b manifests the potential of triadic relations_2a.  Not only is the team_1b itself a purely relational structure consisting of a social circle with around 15 members, the team is the site for the embodiment of pairs of me-you relations, over 100 of them (for a team of 15).  Not only is the social circle of the team the site for the embodiment of pairs of me-you relations, the team itself embodies the relational structure of icons and indexes characteristic of the specifying sign.

The LCA understands pantomime and pointing, even though the most theatrical specifying signs come in the style of emotion-laden situation-revealing gestures and vocalizations that are not under voluntary control.  Pantomime and pointing are voluntary gestures requesting, informing and sharing, not information, but desires.  Pantomime and pointing is typical for family (5) and friends (5).

The great apes (and the LCA) are not much interested in teamwork or joint attention.

The bipedal southern apes are.

The australopithecines start to generate intentional interventional signs in the course of team efforts.

In the process, the Tomasello-Scholastic interscope comes into play.  In this three-level interscope, Tomasello’s insights of a common conceptual ground_3c and the potential of mutual expectations_1c take the place of the scholastic perspective-level normal context_3c and potential_1c.

0316 Here, semiotics proves valuable, as an alternate way of portraying the dynamics of the above interscope.

Manual-brachial gestures may be used to pantomime and to point.  Pantomime goes with iconic natural signs, where the sign-object is rooted in the principle of similarity.  Pointing goes with indexal natural signs, where the sign-object is rooted in the principle of contiguity.

0317 This explains the medium for talking for early hominins.

The arm and hand are under voluntary control.  The voice is not.  Voluntary control is necessary in order to intentionally generate an interventional sign-object_2a (SO_i) that is decoded into a specifying sign-vehicle_2a (SV_s).

The interventional sign-vehicle_2c (SV_i), in turn, is brought into being by an exemplar sign object_2c (SO_e).

Plus, the exemplar sign-vehicle_2b (SV_e) is contiguous with the specifying sign-object_2b (SO_s).

0318 Here is a picture of the Tomasello-scholastic interscope, framed in terms of the elements of specifying, exemplar and interventional sign-relations.

0319 How does this play out in the many me-you relations involved in each team?

Here is a diagram that appears in Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2008) “The Origins of Social Communication”,located in Razie Mah’s blog for January 17-4, 2024.

0320 In hand talk among hominins engaged in joint attention, each individual, “me”, addresses another individual, “you”.  The specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s) or… is it?… the interventional sign-object (SO_i) entangles “us”, as the “we” who belong to the normal context of what is happening_3a operating on the potential of ‘something happening’_1a (SI_i).

0321 So, how is reference guaranteed?

Reference is guaranteed when the specifying sign-relation naturally perceives its sign-vehicle (SV_s) as an icon and an index.  The referent is outside of “us”.  The referent appears to be a mind-independent being.

There are no word-games in early hominin hand-talk.

0322 Notably, the prior blog’s semiotic picture of hominin communication testifies to Saussure’s definition of language as two related systems of differences, “parole” and “langue”.  In hand talk, the relation is motivated, because hand-talk manifests icons and indexes.  In speech-alone talk, the relation is arbitrary, because speech-alone talk is purely symbolic.  Spoken words cannot picture or point to anything.

Here is a picture for hominin hand-talk.

0323 What is wrong with this picture?

Where is the adaptation of joint attention_2a and all that it entails?

Like a bad movie, a crucial element is left on the cutting room floor.

0324 Tomasello identifies some of the consequences of hominin hand-talk.

0325 To start, the motive to inform must be true.  Hand-talk gestures request, inform and share without falsehood or deception.  “Accurate” and “honest” are not ideated as virtues in hand-talk, because the referents of these explicit abstractions cannot be pictured or pointed to.  “Accurate” and “honest” cannot be named.  But, surely hominins recognize accuracy and honesty.

Next, the gesture-word must be timely.  It must be relevant.  Eye-contact may be necessary.  The sclera of the eye for humans is white, allowing for easy determination of the direction of gaze.  The palms of the hands lack pigment, enhancing visibility.

Yes, intuitions about timely, relevant word-gestures are built into the hominin body.

0326 Next, proto-language offers clues that assist in decoding an interventional sign-object (SO_i) into a specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s).  For example, precursor gestures may differentiate intents to request, inform and share.  Special gestures may mark time, distance, or direction with respect to the sun.  These clues will later be incorporated into a fully grammatical hand-talk.

Next, manual-brachial gestures within each team become more and more distinct, depending on the routinization of the team activities over time.  As habitual voluntary manual-brachial gestures become more distinct over generations, the proto-language of each team approaches Saussure’s definition of language.  A closed and finite system of differences may also be called a symbolic order.  Symbolic operations may evolve.  Today, we call these symbolic operations, “grammar”. 

0327 Let me say that again.

First, hand-talk evolves in the milieu of teams in the Era of Joint Intentionality.  Hand-talk is accurate, honest, timely and relevant.  The specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s) yields a sensible sign-object (SO_s).

Second, the specifying sign flourishes when reference is guaranteed by the iconic and indexal sign-qualities of hand-talk.

Third, each team’s hand-talk system of differences slowly becomes more and more linguistic as word-gestures become more and more distinct.  Grammar exploits the emergence of a symbolic order (that is, a system of differences).  Grammar consists in symbolic operations among gestural-words.

0328 So concludes my examination the era of joint intentionality.

0329 Tomasello identifies three epochs in the evolution of hominin thinking, starting with the last common ancestor (LCA) and ending… when?..  how about 7800 years ago, with the first singularity? 

Here is how Razie Mah associates Tomasello’s eras of intentionality to the archaeological record.

0330 This should look familiar by now.

0331 Chapter four is titled, “Collective Intentionality”.

0332 Here, I continue my game (see points 0271 and 0274)

I imagine the following intersection for human evolution entering into my slot for species impressa_2a.  I ask myself, “What is a sensible interpretation of the phenotype and adaptation for the era of collective intentionality, lasting between the beginning of the domestication of fire to the first singularity, covering from around 0.80 to around 0.008Myr?”

0333 What is the phenotype_2V and the adaptation_2H for the era of collective intentionality,

What is my perception_2b?

Here is a picture.

0334 Collective intentionality_2H both incorporates and extends the adaptation of joint attention_2H.  Joint attention_2Hevolves in the milieu of obligate collaborative foraging.  Teams_1H are the most important social circles undergoing natural selection.  Teams increase in number and diversity.  The domestication of fire elevates that number and diversity.  Brain size increases with later hominins, indicating that larger groups become relevant.  These larger groups include community (150), seasonal mega-band gatherings (450) and occasional tribal gatherings (1500).  Community is key.

Collective attention_2H will adapt to dramatic Pleistocene climate shifts, intergroup competition and novel environments and ecologies.

0335 Here is comparison of developments, according to each era.

0336 Chapter four, on the era of collective intentionality, starts with the term, “a modern human society”.

But, what does the word, “modern”, indicate?

Does it indicate the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Or does it indicate our current Lebenswelt?

0337 Tomasello does not even imagine the possibility that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

The cultural transition from the latter to the former nominally begins 0.0078Myr years ago.

That is 7824 years ago, more or less.

0338 I like this particular year because scholars may covert from AD (Anno Domini) to U0′ (Ubaid Zero Prime) simply by adding 5800.

But, astrologers may have other suggestions.  So, the jury is out for year zero of Ubaid Zero Prime.

Say what?

If the heavens operate as a timepiece on the Celestial Earth, then maybe astrologers on the Mundane Earth can calculate out a conjunction, among planets known only to moderns, around 5800 B.C.  A significant conjunction would perhaps, correspond to the nominal birth of Adam and the mythic initiation of our current Lebenswelt.

The exercise may be viewed as a modern tribute to the three wise men who brought gifts to the Christ child.

0339 The hypothesis of the first singularity is initially proposed in two works, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (short and scientific) and An Archaeology of the Fall (longer and aesthetic).  Both are by Razie Mah.  Both are available for purchase at smashwords and other e-book venues.

The take-home message?

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.

The evolution of talk plays a key role in the hypothesis of the first singularity.

Constrained social complexity is a hallmark of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Before two-hundred thousand years ago, hominins practice hand-talk.  Then, with the evolution of our species, speech is added to hand-talk.  Humans practice a dual-mode way of talking, called “hand-speech talk”.  They do so for two hundred thousand years.  At first, speech is like a musical accompaniment to hand talk.  Over generations, speech takes more and more a life of its own.

Then, the first singularity starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.

Civilization is potentiated by speech-alone talk.  All civilized peoples practice speech-alone talk.  Civilization belongs to our current Lebenswelt.

0340 So, let me look at a more detailed timeline for the era of collective intentionality.

Before 0.2Myr, speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.

0341 Even though Tomasello does not know about Razie Mah, his arguments support the incredible scenarios on display in The Human Niche and An Archaeology of the Fall.

The era of joint intentionality lays the foundation.

The era of collective intentionality builds the edifice, a living world where the collaboration of teams (15) cultivates every social circle, from family (5), to intimate friends (5), to bands (50), to communities (150) and, in moments of gathering, mega-bands (500) and tribes (1500).  Every social circle adapts to its proximate niche.  Every social circle adapts to the ultimate niche of triadic relations.  Traditions favor harmony among social circles.  Every social circle encourages human flourishing.

0342 Is this what we evolved to be?

We work (for foods and) for objects that cannot be pictured or pointed to using hand-talk and hand-speech talk.  Yet, they are real, nonetheless.  We cannot analyze the objects that bring us together within each social circle, because hand-talk does not permit explicit abstraction.  Hand-talk facilitates implicit abstraction.  When these implicit abstractions are adaptive, they end up as adaptations.  They infuse the hominin body and brain.  They are the roots and the branches of our tree of life.

0343 Perhaps, to the civilized person, this harmony between social circles and human bodies and brains seems a little too… shall I say?… utopian.

Does it sound a little too similar to what Thomas Aquinas labels, “original justice”?

See Comments on Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) “Aquinas, Original Sin and The Challenge of Evolution”, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0344 All this ends with the first singularity.

Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

We are not who we evolved to be.

0345 My recommendation?

Place a dark line through the term, “modern human society”, whenever it appears in Tomasello’s text, and replace it with a label for a world, where we live as who we evolved to be.

At the center of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in stands the tree of life.

0346 During the era of collective intentionality, humans become who we evolved to be.

Tomasello taps into that long-forgotten world by reviewing research into the cognitive abilities of newborns and infants.  They start to pantomime and to point.  But, as they learn speech-alone talk, they pantomime less and less.  They continue to point.

This behavioral trend tells me that speech-alone talk usurps the pantomime (or iconic) aspect of hand talk. 

Also, it tells me that speech-alone talk can never deliver the pointing (or indexal) aspect of hand talk.

0347 Spoken words point to… what?.. the presence of a speaker?

And, the images that spoken words provide, what of these?

0348 Are they illusions of reference?

Spoken words are codes that trigger decodings of what we imagine the referent must be.  

With hand talk, the referent becomes obvious.  The referent is what the pantomime imitates.  A part stands for the whole.  Both the part and the whole are real.  We innately anticipate words to be pictures of something so real that it can be imaged and indicated.

With speech-alone talk, the referent of a word is not so obvious.  Yet, we innately anticipate that it is.  For this reason, civilizations fashion artifacts that validate the reference that we project into our spoken words.  The validation works, until, of course, it doesn’t.

0349 Language evolves in the milieu of hand-talk.  Technically, language consists of two related systems of differences,parole (talk) and langue (mental processing of talk).  Grammar consists of symbolic operations within a fixed and finite system of differences (also known as “a symbolic order”).  In terms of semiotics, in linguistic hand talk, the natural sign-qualities of symbol operate unnoticed below the surface of manual-brachial icons and indexes.

Hand-talk words picture and point to their referents.  Yet, once hand-talk becomes fully linguistic among all social circles, nonsensical statements, such as “The grass has eyes.”, open novel cognitive territories beyond the range of sensible construction.  Sensible construction is mandatory in teams. But, what about community?

A community demands larger cognitive spaces.

Nonsensical statements allow the social construction of evocative judgments that carry meaning beyond literal decoding.  “The grass has eyes.” may warn about snakes in the area.  It may also be a warning about a particular community member.

0350 What brings all of the above into play?

The domestication of fire does.

0351 With the domestication of fire, cooking provides calories and nutrients not available in raw food.  More foods become edible with cooking.  A huge expansion of teamwork is called for.  More teams mean larger brains and larger groups.

Prior to fire, hominins undoubtedly engaged in teamwork for culinary practices that are currently not imagined (and perhaps, may be unimaginable to our civilized minds).  There is a fine art to finding the right conditions for allowing food to rot and still be edible.  Rotten food may be more nutritious than raw.  After all, it is predigested… or… something like that… and maybe seething with protein-rich edible bugs.  Each new trick of food preparation calls for a new team to perfect the methods.  Each successful team increases the reproductive success of its team members and selects for physiology and temperament and cognitive capacities that make the methods more and more intuitively natural.

0352 Fire is more than icing on the cake of Acheulean food preparation.

Fire unlocks calories and vitamins by compromising the cellular integrity of raw foods.

No wonder fire-cooked food tastes delicious.

0353 Fire unlocks another opportunity.  Now, talk no longer belongs to each team (15).  Everyone sits around the fire after a big cooked meal.  Talk itself  becomes something like a team sport.  Talk becomes a communal activity.

Steven Mithen, in Prehistory of Mind (1996), discusses a transition from minds built like Romanesque cathedrals to minds built like Gothic cathedrals.   The Romanesque cathedral has a relatively small nave and is ringed by (almost) free-standing chapels.  This reminds me of hand-talk locked in teams during the era of joint attention.  The Gothic cathedral has a huge nave with small chapels on the sides.  This reminds me of hand-talk opening to all in the community, so that fully-linguistic hand-talk changes all the social circles, including teams.

0354 Tomasello does not dabble with such metaphors.  He notes that hominin society in the era of collective intentionality may be characterized by two dimensions.

The first dimension is synchronic.  To me, that means, at every now, the social circles of family (5), intimate friends (5), teams (15), bands (50), communities (150), along with the nascent mega-bands (500) and tribes (1500) appear, to any individual, something like the tree of life.  

The second dimension is diachronic.  To me, that means, at every passage, the social circles work in tandem to achieve coherence, resolution and harmony, not with some explicitly abstracted formulation of a necessary order, but with the lives of all present, past and future. The tree of life has always been there.  The tree of life will always be there.

0355 Oh, forget the metaphor.

Tomasello’s two dimensions concern the transmission of cultural practices.  The word, “conventionalization”, applies.

0356 How does conventionalization come to be?

Obligatory collaborative foraging is so productive that the era of joint intentionality saw the destabilization of two demographic factors.  First, as the number of teams increase and as teams become more and more productive (by selective breeding, so to speak), the size of the band (50) increases to the size of a community (150).  The hominin brain increases in size proportionately.

The second is that, as the number of communities increase, intergroup competition begins.  Intergroup competition becomes a proximate niche in hominin evolution.

0357 The era of joint intentionality overflows into the era of collective intentionality.

0358 Just as the Homo genus first appears during the course of the era of joint intentionality, our species, Homo sapiens,appears during the course of the era of collective intentionality.

Here is a list of Tomasello’s eras of intentionality.

0359 How does the evolution of talk match up with these eras?

0360 The era of individual intentionality starts with the last common ancestor.  The voice is not under voluntary control.  The arms and hands are, for the most part, under voluntary control.  They are used to request, inform and share.  But, there are moments when they are less communicative, such as when a big fight happens.  Then, the arms and hands become weapons.  So do the teeth.

In other words, communicative manual-brachial gestures are most likely to be shared among friends and family.  Pantomime and pointing are the primary modes.

0361 Once our lineage is fully bipedal (labeled by the term, “hominid), many species of “southern ape” evolve.  The one that leads to our lineage (labeled by the term, “hominin”) adapts to the environment and ecology of mixed forest and savannah by working in teams.  “We work for food.” is the motto.  The teams are as diverse as what hominins figure that they can eat, that is not already taken by the baboons, vultures, hyenas, and so forth.  The Oldowan stone-tool team is the only one to leave artifacts that evolutionary anthropologists study today.

Oldowan stone tools remain unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years.

0362 Hand talk is used in team work.  For this to happen, manual-brachial gestures rely on pantomime and pointing.  Gestures serve as natural signs, icons and indexes, based on the principles of similarity and indication.  Icons and indexes tend to be intuitively obvious.

As voluntary, purpose- and situation-driven hand signs are routinized, they become more and more linguistic.  According to Ferdinand de Saussure, language consists of two systems of differences, parole (talk) and langue (corresponding mental processing).  The parole aspect consists in routine manual-brachial iconic and indexal signs (gesture-words).  The langue aspect is a little more difficult to describe.

0363 Oddly enough, the schoolmen of the so-called “Middle Ages” formalize a portrayal of the way humans think.  Impressions are called, in Latin, species impressa.  Perceptions virtually situate impressions.  They are called species expressa. Then, a perception may or may not be judged.  A judgment puts sensation and perception into perspective.  A species intelligibilis virtually brings a universal aspect of the species impressa into relation with an intelligible aspect of the species expressa.  A species intelligibilis brings a species impressa intelligibilis into relation with a species expressa intelligibilis.

0364 Would Tomasello label this portrayal, “The process of intelligibilization.”?

I wonder.

Am I exhausted?

This is so intelligibilitating.

0365 Here is a picture.

0366 This diagram proves valuable in understanding langue, the mental processing that corresponds to parole (that is, hand talk).  A gesture-word gets decoded in the sign-vehicle of the specifying sign, which is located in the slot for species impressa_2a.  This is why the natural signs of icon and index are so crucial to hand talk.  The referent already exists.  All the talker needs to do is to pantomime or to point in order to tell another person on the team the potential of ‘something’ happening_1a in the normal context of teamwork happening_3a.

0367 What does it mean to “me”?

Well, what “you” are telling me must be obvious (each word is an icon or an index) and easy to guess (each word must be distinct enough that I don’t confuse it with another gesture-word).  Today, this is called, “sensible construction”.  See Razie Mah’s A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0368 Sensible construction associates to the content and situation levels of the scholastic interscope.

Sensible construction associates to interventional and specifying signs, as shown in the following figure.

0369 During the era of joint intentionality, hominins get better and better at talking.  They get better and better at sensible construction.  The iconicity and indexality of hand talk is crucial.  Symbolic features operate under the surface of species impressa_2a.

Also, the exemplar sign, the bridge between the specifying and the interventional sign, becomes more and more embodied.  Tomasello’s “common cognitive ground”_3c operates on the potential of mutual intention_1c in the exemplar sign-interpretant.  Teamwork itself makes obvious the perspective-level normal context_3c and potential_1c.

Hominins get better and better at performing interventional signs.

The Homo genus appears in the archaeological record during the era of joint intentionality.

0370 The era of collective intentionality begins with the domestication of fire.

Fire changes the dynamics of the band (50) and community (150), hand-talk is no longer confined to team (15) activities.  A fully linguistic hand-talk adapts to the opportunity.  As noted in How To Define the Word “Religion” (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), a fully grammatical hand-talk allows nonsensible statements.  Each gesture-word in a statement may be an icon or an index.  However, the statement itself may be nonsensical.

0371 A nonsensible statement cannot be sensibly situated_1b.  No-one knows what it might mean to me_3b.  The specifying sign is thwarted and the exemplar sign, already adapted to the common cognitive ground_3c and shared intentionality_1c of team hand talk, must now figure out… or… “socially construct” meaning, presence and message.

This meaning, presence and message does not fit the slogan, “We work for food.”.

The meaning, presence and message must fit something else, such as “We work for an organizational objective.” or “We work for the object that brings us into… um… organization or… hmmm…. relation.”

But, remember, none of these terms, “meaning”, “presence”, “message”, “organization” or “relation” can be imaged or indicated using hand talk.  These explicit abstractions label implicit abstractions that become embodied, through natural selection, during the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0372 Social construction turns out to be very useful in the proximate niche of intergroup competition, as well as in the proximate niche of increasing number and diversity of successful teams (due to the advantages of cooking with fire).

One wonders about the diverse challenges and opportunities to using a fully linguistic hand-talk.  Well, for one, a fully grammatical hand-talk allows one to make metaphorical statements that have two constructions, one sensible and one social.  For two, a fully grammatical hand-talk allows one to make nonsensible statements, yielding social constructionsthat may bring members of the community into organization… and… relation.

0373 Not all nonsensible statements are born the same.

Some produce judgments that seal the marriage deal between a man and a woman.  

For example, today, many religious traditions place a ring on the finger of each bonded man and woman.

How nonsensical is that?

Some nonsensical statements produce judgments that assist in bringing social circles, such as “band” and “community”, into harmony.  When communities come together seasonally, for a mega-band (500) gatherings, or on great occasions, for tribal gatherings (1500), the voice is used for synchronization.  Eventually, the voice adapts.  Hominins learn to sing.  Sexual selection assists in what happens next.  The voice comes under voluntary neural control.  Generations later, hand-talk enjoys a vocal, musical accompaniment.

0374 Then, in an act of natural genius, musical vocalizations becomes spoken words.  At its conception, our species, Homo sapiens, practices hand-speech talk.  Two modes of talking, one foundational and one… well… an adornment.  One is based on icons and indexes.  One sounds out the tones of pure symbols.  Each sound-word is different.  Yet, not one can picture or point to its referent.

0375 The concept of two modes of talk in a single language may seem strange.

The art and culture of the so-called “Upper Paleolithic” period explores cognitive spaces opened by hand-speech talk.

I suspect that this claim best explains the so-called “Upper Paleolithic Revolution”.

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.

0376 In the era of collective intentionality, a common ground_3c brings every social circle into harmony.  Collective intentionality_1c enters into every social circle.  Diverse social circles prove adaptive in the proximate niches of intergroup competition, migration and settlement into novel environments and ecologies, and surviving the chaotic and often harsh weather regimes of the Pleistocene.

In the time of Homo sapiens, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, hand-speech talk opens cognitive spaces that bring constrained social complexity to the verge of differentiating the social, the organizational and the individual.  But, the iconic and indexal nature of hand talk constrains differentiation, even as the symbolic nature of speech would release the Lebenswelt into unconstrained complexity.

0377 Indeed, the loss of the hand-talk component of hand-speech talk marks the end of the era of collective intentionalityand the start of the first singularity.

0378 Tomasello concludes his chapter on collective intentionality with a note on objectivity.  The objective view is the view from “nowhere”.  The objective viewpoint rises above both joint and collective intentionality.  At least, that is the promise.  Objectivity differentiates what joint and collective intentionality sense, but cannot articulate.

In our current Lebenswelt of speech-alone talk, a spoken word can become as objective as a surgeon’s blade.  A spoken word can become as objective as a machete. A spoken word can become as objective as a cutting remark.  Spoken wordsare purely symbolic beings.  They cannot picture or point to their referents.

So, the modern use of the word, “objective”, means cut off from any subjective point of view.

0379 In the late-modern civilizations of the West, a written law is considered objective.  It stands above and contains each and every one of us.  Similarly, scientific facts and theories are supposed to be objective, because they stand below each and every one of us.

0380 Tomasello give this reader the impression that “objectivity” is one of the benefits of our current Lebenswelt.

0381 But, I wonder.

If I place an “objective” written law_2c above my “subjective” perceptions_2b, and if I insist that my “subjective” perceptions_2b must be underwritten by scientific impressions_2a, then I arrive at a dystopian picture of the way humans think.

0382 Here is the interscope.

Is this the natural end of human thinking?