0055 Here is a list of the chapters of the book before me.
0056 Once again, here is the three-level interscope of Tomasello’s vision.
0057 Do these figures correspond?
Well, if they do correspond, then Tomasello envisions a grand schema, weaving together hominin evolution and modern linguistics into one explanatory canvas. Human ontogeny2cdescribes the phenotypic expression of human cognition. Culture2b describes traditions concerned with inspiring, interpellating and guiding human ontogenetic development2c. Joint attention2a is the foundational adaptation, emerging from (and situating) the niche of sociogenesis1a, making human cultural traditions2b possible.
0058 To me, the first three chapters concern the first two levels of Tomasello’s vision. The remaining four chaptersdiscuss the second two levels.
Details?
0059 In chapter four, Tomasello proposes that the social-cognitive basis of language acquisition is modeled by scientific inquiry into joint attention2a. Communicative intentions are key. Imitative role-reversal, along with intersubjectivity, is at play. Joint-attention2a starts without language, at the age of one year. Language acquisition starts soon afterwards.
Well, they pay attention to events that are going around them.
Prior points 0026 and 0027 apply. The newborn is trying to be sensible. The newborn begins to fill in elements of an innate relational structure that is not articulated by modern scientists, but by medieval scholastics. At the end of the Latin Age, the Baroque scholastic, John Poinsot (1589-1644 AD), formulates the proposition that a sign is a triadic relation. Charles Peirce (1839-1914), two centuries later, makes the same discovery and invents postmodern semiotics.
0061 Of course, neither newborns or Tomasello know this, they only know the events before them. For newborns, events include mom and dad and other siblings and the stuff of everyday life. For Tomasello, the events include scientific inquiries into the behaviors of the great apes and the cognitive abilities of newborns and infants.
0062 Here is a picture of the scholastic two-level interscope for sensible thought. The newborn has impressions, sensations and feelings due to an event. The scholastics call these qualia, “species impressa2a“. This is the only element that is filled in at first. The other elements come into play because this relational structure is phenotypic.
0063 This relation does not require language. It is a precursor to language.
Also, the ongoing event2a is not the event itself. Rather, the ongoing event2a consists of impressions of what is going on at the moment2a.
By the time the tyke is nine months old, slots are filling in quite nicely.
Here is a picture.
0064 With chapter four in mind, I add another layer, where the object of joint attention2b has the potential to be represented symbolically1c (in speech-alone talk) or iconically and indexally1c (in hand and hand-speech talk). The resulting actuality2c is linguistic communication2c (or “language2c“) in the normal context of making sense.
This added layer follows the theme of Tomasello’s argument.
0065 At the same time, the above three-level interscope correlates to a similar diagram developed while reading articles about Latin Age scholastics. Consider two blogs appearing on Razie Mah’s website, Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (appearing in November 2023) and Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, To Bach, And Back” (appearing in December 2023).
The scholastic picture of the way humans think is diagrammed below.
0066 To me, Tomasello wrestles with the same issues addressed by John Deely and Daniel Dennett. Our lineage adapts into the potential1b of immaterial actualities independent of the adapting species2a. The human niche1b is the potential of triadic relations2a.
0067 The three-level scholastic interscope for how humans think is a purely relational structure.
Are Tomasello, Deely and Dennett discussing the same suite of human adaptations, as pictured in Razie Mah’s foundational construction of the Darwinian paradigm in the masterwork, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues)?
0068 Here is a picture of the Darwinian paradigm for human evolution.
For Tomasello, another term for the human niche1b is “sociogenesis1b“. Joint attention2b is the adaptation2b.
For Deely, human semiosis2b is the adaptation and the niche1b is the potential of sign-processing1b.
For Dennett, meme-usage2b is the adaptation and the niche1b is the potential of the species impressa1b.
0069 Here is a scholastic picture of the way humans think. The actualities are foregrounded, the normal contexts and potentials fade to the background.
Species impressa2a covers impressions, sensations, feelings, qualia and decodings. An ongoing event is the apparent cause of these cognitions2a. Indeed, the event and its species impressa2a cannot be distinguished by a human infant.
Species expressa2b covers perceptions, phantasms, realizations, emotions, and so forth, addressing the question, “What does the content mean to me?”3b.
Species intelligibilis2c, in theory, brings an intelligible aspect of the situation-level actuality into relation with a universal aspect of the content-level actuality. Species intelligibilis2c is a triadic relation experienced holistically as a relationbetween what is and what ought to be. The Latin term for what is is species impressa intelligibilis, a universal aspect of the species impressa2a. The Latin term for what ought to be is species expressa intelligibilis, an intelligible aspect of species expressa2b.
0070 Here is Tomasello’s description of human cognition rendered as a three-level interscope. Again, the actualities are foregrounded.
0071 To me, a comparison of the previous two diagrams supports the claim that modern Tomasello and medieval schoolmen try to fashion keys for the same lock. The lock is a purely relational structure. What enters into each elementdepends on the inquirer.
The scholastics are interested in separating mind-dependent and mind-independent beings, among other goals. This seems to be a far cry from Tomasello’s journey into the natural history of who we are. Yet, these two inquiries have this relational structure in common.
0072 Chapter five is titled, “Linguistic Construction and Event Cognition”. The perspective-level linguistic communication2c participates in ongoing events2a.
Tomasello claims that joint attention is the key adaptation from which subsequent adaptations proceed. Surely, the three-level interscope depicted above does not contradict this claim.
After all, the evolution of joint attention should precede the evolution of linguistic communication.
0073 However, there is a disjunction, because great apes show few (if any) tendencies that may be characterized by joint attention. Even the occasional monkey hunt by chimpanzees is best characterized by several individuals deciding to pursue the same thing at the same time. The monkey-prey is the focus of attention, but the attention is disjointed, not really coordinated.
So, there must be a period before the evolution of joint attention, where individual intentionality reigns, even when group action takes place.
0074 So, when are these eras happening?
Tomasello wants to place the evolution of joint attention before the time of Homo heidelbergensis, who appears in the fossil record between 800 and 400kyr (thousands of years ago).
To me, this makes sense only so far as this.
Homo heidelbergensis leaves traces of cultural behavior in the archeological record.
To me, such traces indicate that these hominins are in the subsequent build-on era.
So, Tomasello’s timeline may require clarification.
0075 Okay, now that I am nitpicking, I must ask, “Is there a problem with making joint attention2athe foundation of an evolutionary theory?”
Allow me to return to Tomasello’s vision.
0076 According to Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), adaptation2 and phenotype2 belong to two independent scientific disciplines: natural history and genetics. Since both belong to situation-level nested forms that rely on different potentials, one cannot situate or contextualize the other. However, this is precisely what occurs in Tomasello’s vision.
Of course, Tomasello’s vision remains a breakthrough in the framework of modern science. At least, the phenotype does not correspond to the adaptation. Instead, the phenotype2c puts culture2b into perspective. Then, culture2b virtually situates the adaptation of joint attention2a.
Yes, to repeat, the phenotype2c does not directly situate the adaptation2a. Tomasello’s vision leads upwards from joint attention2a to human culture2b and then to human cognitive development2c. Cognitive development2c puts culture2b into perspective, just as culture2b virtually situates joint attention2a.
Tomasello’s vision is truly remarkable.
0077 And, it is difficult to achieve.
This book is the start of a twenty year journey.
0078 As noted in points 0055 through 0058, the last few chapters cover the cultural (situation) and ontogenetic (perspective) levels of Tomasello’s vision. As far as I can see, these chapters labor to show how human ontogeny2c (the scientific study of human development) virtually contextualizes human culture2b (a somewhat vaguely defined term that refers to all situations where joint attention2a pertains). In the process, Tomasello must also explain how human culture2b, especially spoken language and symbolic representation, virtually emerges from and situates joint attention2a.
How ambitious is that?
0079 Here a picture of the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality (the vertical column in secondness in Tomasello’s vision, portrayed as a nested form).
The normal context of the behavior of newborns and infants2c virtually brings the actuality of spoken language and symbolic representation2binto the potential of a foundational adaptation2a.
0080 Yes, this is very ambitious, and the final three chapters of this book strain to meet the challenge. They should be read with this in mind. The last three chapters are well composed. Tomasello is an excellent writer. He is very organized. But, his exposition is like lifting a two-hundred pound octopus out of the water. As soon as one arm is lifted, a different one slides back into the murk.
0081 Plus, there is the lingering issue of natural history.
Here is a picture with Tomasello’s guesses.
Tomasello makes two associations that make no sense at all, when considering joint attention2b as an adaptation to sociogenesis1b in the normal context of natural selection3b. Sociogenesis1b is the human niche1b. The human niche1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a. Consequently, the adaptation of joint attention2a should be marked in the archaeological record with the appearance of the Homo genus, around 1.8Myr (millions of years ago).
0082 With that in mind, I close this examination of the first step in Tomasello’s journey, scientifically exploring who we are. The next step is a book that expands and clarifies this first step. It is published nine years later.
0083 In 2008 AD, Michael Tomasello, then co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, publishes the work before me (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).
This book is the second marker in Tomasello’s intellectual journey. I start following his journey with Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (appearing in Razie Mah’s January 2024 blog). That is the first marker.
0084 The second marker starts as an academic presentation in 2006. His Jean Nicod Lectures, in Paris, concerns his work on great ape gestural communication, human infant gestural communication and human children’s language development. These lectures attempt to construct one coherent account of the evolution of hominin communication.
Oh, that terminology. Where Tomasello inscribes, “human”, I say, “hominin”.
0085 From my examination at the first marker, I already have a guess about Tomasello’s vision.
Here is a picture.
0086 Note that the titles of the levels have changed.
Also note that human ontogeny2c or models of child development currently built by psychologists2c, associates to phenotypes and genetics. Joint attention2a or models in evolutionary psychology concerning hominin cognition2a,associates to adaptations and natural history.
0087 Tomasello uses the word, “origins”, in his title. Does this suppose that human communication may be regarded as a phenotypic trait or as an adaptation? Or maybe, the conjunction is “and”.
In the above figure, I get the idea that the phenotype virtually contextualizes the adaptation. But, that is not really the case. The phenotype2b virtually situates a species’ or individual’s DNA2a.
Here is a diagram.
0088 Not surprisingly, this diagram in genetics has the same two-level relational structureas Darwin’s paradigm for natural history.
0089 What does this imply?
A mystery stands at the heart of evolutionary biology.
The adaptation is not the same as the phenotype.
Yet, together, they constitute a single actuality, which may be labeled a genus, a species or an individual.
Two category-based nested forms intersect in the realm of actuality. It is like two streets that meet. The intersection is constituted by both streets. As far as traffic goes, intersections are sites of dangerous contradictions. Traffic from one street should not collide with traffic from the other street. I suppose that the intersection of adaptation and phenotypecarries irreconcilable contradictions as well.
0090 Perhaps, Tomasello’s vision may be resolved by considering both joint attention2a and human ontogeny2c as adaptations, even though the latter is technically, phenotypic.
I suggest this because selection is the normal context for all three levels in Tomasello’s vision. Since natural selection goes with adaptation, the vision is one of natural history.
0091 That implies that the potentials for all three levels are like niches.
Human ontogeny2c is an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of human culture2b, where human culture2b is like an actuality independent of the adapting species of individuals undergoing development3c.
Human culture2b is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of joint attention2a, where joint attention2a is like an actuality independent of the adapting ways of doing things3b.
Joint attention2a is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates sociogenesis1a, where sociogenesis1a is the potential of… what?… I have run out of actualities independent of the adapting species.
0092 Here is where the foundational Tomasello-Mah synthesis enters the picture.
Ah, so here is a problem.
Tomasello’s vision of the origins of human communication conceals the actuality underlying sociogenesis1a, the potential1a giving rise to joint attention2a. The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.
0093 What about the subscripts in the preceding paragraph?
They belong to Tomasello’s vision.
0094 This subscript business can be confusing.
To me, the concealment in Tomasello’s vision is not necessarily a drawback. Rather, it presents an opportunity to re-articulate Tomasello’s arc of inquiry using the category-based nested form and other triadic relations.
0095 In the prior series of blogs, examining a book published in 1999, I introduced an interscope for the way humans think that derives from work by medieval schoolmen, the so-called “scholastics” of the Latin Age.
Here is a picture of the scholastic version of how humans think, packaged as a three level interscope.
0096 Now, I attend to the book before me. Right away, I suggest that the reader look at chapter seven. Tomasello is very organized. The final chapter provides an awesome summary of the entire book.
0097 In chapter one, the author proposes three interlocking hypotheses about the origins of human communication.
First, human cooperative manual-brachial gestures evolve initially in the domain of pantomime and pointing.
Second, this evolution is potentiated by skills and motivations devoted to sharing intentions in the context of collaborative activities.
Third, once the second point is in place, linguistic conventions evolve.
0098 Here is a list.
0099 To start, Tomasello notes that all four species of great apes, who are presumably closer in character to our last common ancestor than we are, learn and use manual gestures in flexible ways. In contrast, vocalizations are unlearned and inflexible. These observations support the first hypothesis.
Next, Tomasello argues that the path from (situation-revealing) ape vocalizations to (content-revealing) human speech-alone talk is untenable. The hominin capacity for language starts with manual-brachial gestures and ends with speech-alone talking civilizations.
0100 So, there must be a twist in human evolution.
Notably, these are also key claims in Razie Mah’s three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0101 So, what is this business about “shared intentions”?
How do manual-brachial gestures accomplish that?
Consider the dog. Dogs adapt into the niche of humans sharing intentions. They read human body language. In a simple experiment, I stand on the other side of a low table with two overturned bowls. If I look at one one bowl, the dog will sense that this is the bowl that hides the treat. My dog and I share a common conceptual ground. She knows that I give information to her for her benefit, rather than my own. She would be very upset if I gazed at the wrong bowl, and, when she overturned it and found nothing, saw me reaching under the ungazed bowl and stealing her treat.
Is sharing food the foundation for shared intentionality?
In captivity, one ape may assist a second ape in getting food, even when that food will not be available to the first ape. That is the type of game that cognitive psychologists design.
0102 But, hominins do not evolve in captivity.
In the wild, shared intentionality proves very helpful.
Imagine that I notice that my compatriot does not see a snake nearby in the grass. If I could gesture a motion that looks like the motion of a snake then point to it, that would be far better than sharing food. In hand talk, I could say, “[WIGGLE HAND] [POINT to snake].” Over time, the manual-brachial pantomime becomes routinized as the hand-talk word, [SNAKE].
0103 Here is a picture.
0104 In order for my gestural action to become a content-level actuality2a, the other hominin must presume that his impression of this actuality2a occurs in the normal context of what is happening3a and holds the potential of ‘something’ happening’1a.
My domesticated dog knows this.
But, what of my compatriot from 3Myr (millions of years ago)?
0105 Ah, that is why Tomasello’s label of “shared intentionality” is so evocative.
The “shared” goes with the normal context of what is happening3a.
The “intentionality” goes with the potential of ‘something happening’1a.
0106 My gestural action changes my friend’s impressions.
If I do not share, then I intend for my friend to get a snakebite.
In Christian parlance, this is called “a sin of omission”.
In the parlance of natural history, this is called “natural selection”.
The problem is that part of me dies when my friend succumbs to the toxic injection.
0107 Yes, Tomasello’s term, “shared intentionality”, is more than about food. Any dog will tell you this. Domestication has a multitude of rewards.
Now, I examine the role of the bipedal ape near the snake.
0108 Yes, the affordance of my friend’s warning is valuable for me (and my reproductive success).
According to Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), this two level interscope harbors a sign. The scholastics call this sign, “specificative extrinsic formal causality”. I call it “a specifying sign”.
0109 According to Peirce, a sign-relation consists of three elements: a sign-interpretant (SI), a sign-object (SO) and a sign-vehicle (SV). Unlike the category-based nested form, there is no simple assignment of categories to each element. The reason is obvious. Both the sign-object and the sign-vehicle belong to secondness, the realm of actuality. That leaves the sign-interpretant as… um… belonging to both thirdness, the realm of normal context, and firstness, the realm of potential.
The above two-level interscope offers a frame for these odd assignments.
The following figure includes the three elements of a sign-relation.
The subscript, “s”, denotes specifying sign.
0110 In terms of the specifying sign-relation, my friend’s hand talk, “[SNAKE] [THERE]2a” (SVs) stands for an immediate need to avoid danger2b (SOs) in regards to what it means to me3a operating on the potential of encountering a snake1b (SIs).
0111 This only works when both me (the one near the snake) and my teammate (the one pointing out the danger) share the same content-level category-based nested form.
How do we know what is happening3a and the potential of ‘something’ happening1a without a method to arrive at a common ground?
0112 Chapter three of Tomasello’s book concerns intentional communication among great apes.
There are two broad types of significant gestures: intentional movements and attention getters.
0113 A fun example consists of one young chimpanzee raising an arm while approaching another youngster. This is a specifying sign-vehicle (SVs). The sign-object (SOs) says, “Let’s play!”
0114 Here is the specifying sign.
0115 Do chimpanzee youngsters already know this sign?
I ask because I cannot figure how the youngsters already sense what is happening3a or the potential of ‘something happening1a, upon the occurrence of the raised arm gesture2a.
I can only conclude that what is happening3a and the potential of ‘something happening’1a are the sign-interpretant of another sign and the sign-object of that sign is the raised arm.
In order to imagine this, a perspective-level actuality2c is needed.
0116 Here is a picture, using the scholastic three-level interscope for how humans think.
0117 I don’t know whether scholastics have a formal causality for this sign-relation. But, I call it “the interventional sign”. The interventional sign is odd in so far as the actuality of the sign-vehicle2c is mental and the actuality of the sign-object2a is a gestural action.
It makes me wonder, is the raised arm of a young, playful, chimpanzee the sign-vehicle of the specifying sign or the sign-object of the interventional sign?
Oh, the answer is obvious.
It2a must be both.
This is the conclusion found in Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, To Bach and Back” in Razie Mah’s blog for December 2023.
0118 Surely, the intentionality2c of the arm raise2a is built into the chimpanzee as a phenotypic trait.
Surely, the sign-interpretant (SIi) of the interventional sign informs both chimpanzee youngsters what is happening3a and the potential of ‘something happening’1a.
0119 But, the intention is not to inform. The intention is to play2c.
Consequently, there is a qualitative difference between the example of the arm raise2a for the chimpanzee (as a stand-in for the last common ancestor) and the example of [SNAKE][THERE] of the early hominin (either Australopithecus or Homo genus).
0120 In chapter three, Tomasello shows that human newborns and infants innately sense that intention2c underlies specifying signs.
To explain this fact, Tomasello proposes his cooperation model. Shared intentionality presupposes a background sense of the other as a candidate for cooperative agency. This requires (1) cognitive skills for creating joint attention and intentions and (2) social motivations for helping and sharing with others. Tomasello labels these formal requirements, (1) “common conceptual ground” and (2) “mutual expectations”.
0121 Do the interventional and specifying signs for the chimpanzee arm raise meet these requirements.
Here is a picture of the sequence, in the scholastic three-level interscope.
0122 In the (apparently inside out) interventional sign-relation, I intend to play2c (SVi) stands for a raised arm2a (SOi) with respect to what is happening3a operating on the potential of ‘something happening’1a (SIi).
In the (more familiarly structured) specifying sign-relation, a raised arm2a (SVs) stands for let us play2b (SOs) in regards to what it means to me3b operating on the potential meaning of ‘raised arm’1b (SIs).
0123 For all practical purposes, this model works just fine for great apes and perhaps, bipedal australopithecines. One youngster does not inform the other youngster about content as much as provide a signal to initiate a desired situation.
As soon as the other example is presented in the same manner, then one australopithecine informs another about content and that content initiates the desired situation. How else is one friend going to warn another?
0124 Some of the hallmarks of human communication are apparent in this diagram, when compared to the prior diagram.
There is the sense that one hominin is the communicator and the other hominin receives a communication.
The intent is to inform.
Just as in youthful chimpanzee play, both hominins share a common conceptual ground. Both know the pantomime-word “snake”. Both know that the pointing finger means “there”. There is a mutual expectation that [SNAKE][THERE]2aspecifies something real1a in the normal context of what is happening3a. So, mutual expectation initiates a situation common to both, just like chimpanzee play.
0125 But, doesn’t there seem to be a missing sign?
In the first example, the missing sign is not so obvious.
In the second example, it is.
The missing sign is called the exemplar sign. The exemplar sign is first discussed in Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings. A more recent discussion is found in Razie Mah’s blog for November 2023, titled Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) Semiotic Animal.
0126 Here is a diagram.
0127 Note the substitutions in the perspective-level of the scholastic three-level interscope for how humans think.
The normal context3c is not, “Does this make sense?3c“. It3c is a common conceptual ground3c. If the common conceptual ground3c does not make sense, then how can it be held in common? This provides a high standard for hominin thinking, doesn’t it?
Also, the potential1c is not, “the possibility of contextualizing the situation1c“. It1c is the possibilities inherent in mutual expectations1c.
0128 The above figure captures the message of chapter three, titled “Hominin Cooperative Communication”.
0129 Figure 3.1 in chapter three presents a schematic of a cooperative model of human communication. The communicator is depicted as one head. The recipient is portrayed as a second head. The two heads face one another. Arrows pass from the communicator to the recipient through a gray-box labeled, norms of cooperation and cooperative reason.
“Norms of cooperation” sounds like common conceptual ground3c and the potential of ‘mutual expectations’1c.
“Cooperative reason” seems like making sense3c and the potential of ‘contextualizing the situation’1c.
0130 Here is the corresponding figure derived from this examination.
0131 What a difference!
Human communication does not proceed from communicator to recipient. It proceeds by filling in the empty slots of the scholastic three-level interscope for how humans think.
Plus, this picture fits hand-in-glove with Tomasello’s assertion that hominin communication is conducted in hand talk, starting with pantomime and pointing.
Finally, in terms of natural history, some of the expansion of the brain, when going from the southern ape (Australopithecus) to handy man (Homo habilis) and to man-stand-tall (Homo erectus), can be attributed to adding more and more elements to this three-level interscope.
Yes, hominin brains embody more and more specifying, exemplar and interventional sign-relations.
Or something like that.
0132 Here is a good time to pause and assess Tomasello’s three interlocking hypotheses.
So far, two of them are pertinent to the examination.
0133 Plus, this business of sign-relations adds another way to look at the picture so far.
