0187 In the preface, the author notes that this book is a prequel to The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999, Harvard University Press). The question is the same. What makes humans unique? The answer is the same. Humans think differently than great apes, their closest biological kin.
In 1999, researchers in evolutionary anthropology could say, “Only humans think of other humans as intentional agents. Plus, my cat and my dog are intentional operators, as well, say nothing of the weather.”
Okay, I added the second sentence for dramatic effect.
Unfortunately, research conducted after 1999 introduces a problem. It turns out that great apes recognize intentionality in others.
Uh oh.
0188 This book is the third marker in Tomasello’s intellectual journey. I start following his trek with Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (appearing in Razie Mah’s January 2024 blog). The second marker that I examine may be found in Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2008) “Origins of Human Communication” (appearing later in the same blog for the same month).
0189 In the publication before me, A Natural History of Human Thinking (2014, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts), Tomasello explicitly abstracts three cognitive processes in order to distinguish humans from apes. The processes are cognitive representation, inference and self-monitoring. He then proposes that all three components were transformed in two key steps during hominin evolution. He labels his claims, “the shared-intentionality hypothesis”.
0190 Does this follow the trajectory set by previous works?
Here is a theme that appears in the second marker, pre-emptively modified with the above propositions in mind.
0191 This modified picture allows me to offer slogans for movements zero and one.
0001 In 1999 AD, Michael Tomasello, then co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, publishes the work before me (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).
To me, this work marks the start of the author’s twenty year journey, culminating in a theory of human ontogeny, published in 2019. The word, “ontogeny”, refers to human development and associates to the human phenotype.
0002 What interests me in Tomasello’s journey?
As noted in Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), “phenotype” and “adaptation” are not the same. Instead, these labels apply to distinct actualities that coalesce into a single actuality. One may call that single actuality, an individual, a species or a genus. One may also call that single actuality, “a mystery”.
I am interested in the natural history side of the mystery of human evolution. However, the genetic (or ontogenetic) side cannot be ignored. Plus, natural history cannot be reduced to genetics, or visa versa
0003 Chapter one of Tomasello’s book is titled, “A Puzzle and a Hypothesis”.
Of course, a puzzle is not a mystery. A puzzle can be resolved. A mystery cannot.
The puzzle starts with genetics. Geneticists have examined the DNA of chimpanzees, bonobos and humans and predict that the last common ancestor lives 6 or 7 Myr (six or seven million years ago).
In contrast, physical anthropologists (natural historians) propose the fossil record noted in the following figure. With terminological sleight of hand, they refer to human ancestors as “hominins”, even though the old term for any bipedal primate (ape or human) is “hominid”.
0004 Hmmm. Does the puzzle concern time?
According to genetics, the last common ancestor (LCA) between chimpanzees and humans lives 7 Myr (millions of years ago). But, little significant shows up in the fossil record until 4 Myr. Our lineage obviously evolves feet first. As it turns out, starting around 5 Myr, the extent of tropical vegetation in Africa decreases due to desiccation. Bipedality is an adaptation to mixed forest and savannah.
0005 The fossil record provides other clues, especially stone tools.
The first stone tools are Oldowan. Oldowan stones tools are constructed on site. They are used to scrape meat off of bone and to crack long bones (that are full of fatty marrow).
Acheulean stone tools appear later in the archeological record. Acheulean stone tools are made beforehand and carried with some intention in mind. They have the appearance of a giant tooth. Notably, Acheulean stone tool technology remains unchanged for over a million years. Innovations in stone-tools follow the domestication of fire.
0006 Surely, these two tables are puzzling. In the first, the fossil record pertains to changes in hominin phenotypes. In the second, the fossil record pertains to hominin adaptations, but these adaptations are not phenotypic. They are artifacts. Are these adaptive artifacts cultural? Are they behavioral? I wonder, “Do the words, ‘culture’ and ‘behavior’, capture the matter and the form of these artifacts?” It is as if an adaptation recognizes matter and generates form.
0007 What is the nature of the adaptation that maintains (and occasionally changes) artifacts, as if these artifacts are phenotypes?
Tomasello suggests that an adaptation is a novel form of social cognition. Our lineage adapts to a new way of thinking about one another, eventually allowing sociogenesis, new styles of learning and cultural evolution.
0008 Tomasello proposes that there is one adaptation that potentiates subsequent adaptations.
Razie Mah proposes that there is one ultimate niche for our lineage. The hypothesis is presented in the e-book, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0009 Do Tomasello (in 1999) and Mah (in 2018) propose that our lineage is defined by the same adaptation… er… niche?
What is the difference between an adaptation and a niche?
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.
0001 Let me start with an admission. In this particular examination, I am not myself. I am someone who I am not. I own a dog named, “Daisy”.
The book before me is by Daniel C. Dennett and is titled, “From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds”. The book is published by W.W. Norton (New York, London). The book wrestles with issues both philosophical and scientific. How does our world come to be? How do we come to be?
Who are we? We are people with minds. Minds intelligently design artifacts using tools of production and tools of the intellect. The first tools are handy. The second are… well… not exactly the same as “handy”.
0002 The hand grasps a tool then uses it to manipulate things. The word, “prehensile” applies. Our hands are full of prehensions. We are aware of the heft and feel of material instruments.
The mind grasps an intellectual tool with its… um… brain. Is there such a word as “comprehensile”? How about the term, “comprehension”? Once we become competent using an intellectual tool, we comprehend. We become familiar with its heft and feel.
0003 The hand is unlike the appendages of other mammals.
For example, cats and dogs only have feet. The cat uses its front feet as “paws”, in a manner similar to the way humans use their hands. Not really, because the cat’s paws cannot hold anything. The cat cannot pick up a tool. May I say that the cat’s front paws are part of the feline toolkit? Evolution builds tools right into the cat’s body. Most mammals are fashioned this way. Tools are part of their bodies.
0004 The mind serves as a metaphorical appendage, because it grasps ‘something’, and in doing so, may manipulate it. The dog, whose practical toolkit includes feet and a formidable mouth, has an advantage over the cat, in this respect. The dog’s mind grasps ‘something’ and, in doing so, manipulates humans into serving as the leader of its pack.
To me, the dog is testimony to the inhospitality of wolf “culture”, in general, and the inadequacy of wolf “leadership”, in particular. Wolf pack-leaders often behave like aristocrats, always expecting deferential treatment. They are often filled with paranoia and treachery. Yet, their followers know that they need a leader. Otherwise, there is no pack. Without the pack, there is only death.
0005 Surely, a reasonable human would serve as a more hospitable leader, especially since humans know how to get food in surprising ways. Humans give dogs food. Until, of course, starvation fills the land.
0001 The full title of Deely’s book is Semiotic Animal: A Postmodern Definition of “Human Being” Transcending Patriarchy and Feminism: to supersede the ancient and medieval ‘animal rationale’ along with the modern ‘res cogitans’. The book is published in 2010 by St. Augustine’s Press in South Bend, Indiana.
John Deely (1942-2017 AD) starts as a Thomist interested in Heidegger and becomes a semiotician. He becomes a really, really good promoter of the study of signs. He writes a history of philosophy from the point of view of the revelation… or, is it discovery?.. that the sign is a triadic relation. For years, he teaches at University of Saint Thomas, Houston. He retires, moves to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, home of St. Vincent’s College, then dies.
This examination is to be read in parallel with or after reading (and writing marginalia) in Deely’s book. My argument may run like a dog on a long leash, compared to Deely’s argument. But, there is reason for the analogy. Thirteen years have passed since publication and five years since Deely’s burial, and the Age of Triadic Relations continues to manifest.
Semiotics is the study of signs. A sign is a triadic relation.
0002 Chapter one considers a question that we ask ourselves.
Humans, what type of animals are they?
Chapter two addresses the answer.
0003 Modern philosophy starts (more or less) when Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD) presents a sensation, as an idea and an image where the object of experience directs a construct of the mind. Consequently, he regards humans as thinking things… or the owners of thinking things (minds)… or something like that.
In terms of Peirce’s philosophy, there are two contiguous actualities, characteristic of the category of secondness. They are an object of experience and a construct of the mind. The contiguity (which, for nomenclature, is placed in brackets) is “directs”.
Here is a picture of Descartes’ dyadic actuality. In Latin, the title is “res cogitans“.
Figure 01
0005 As already noted, this hylomorphic structure is coherent with Peirce’s category of secondness. The actuality corresponds to a sensation. Sensation exhibits a dyadic character. Sensation is like cause [and] effect or matter [substantiating] form.
There is an implicit claim that this dyad describes the way humans think.
Plus, a superior claim (not realized until Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD) wrote about it) may be asserted. Humans think in terms of triadic relations, such a signs, mediations, judgments and category-based nested forms.
Say what?
See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0006 With the superior claim in mind, it is no surprise that when later philosophers build epistemologies upon Descartes’ foundation, they end up shifting Descartes’ terms out of secondness, the realm of actuality, and into thirdness, the realm of normal contexts, and firstness, the realm of possibility.
Here is a category-based nested form that sort of captures Kant’s epistemology.
Figure 02
The normal context of the mind3 brings the actuality of an object of experience2 into relation with the potential of a particular condition1. What is that condition? The thing itself [cannot be objectified as] what one sees, hears, smells, tastes or touches.
0007 So, the experience of the five senses2 becomes an object2 as it simultaneously is contextualized by the mind3 and arises from the potential of a particular condition1. Plus, the particular condition1 is that the object of experience cannot be the thing itself1.
It sort of like saying that my image in a mirror is not me, even though I appear to be the object of experience.
0008 Welcome to modern… philosophy?… er… science?
The Positivist’s judgment formalizes the quasi-Kantian category-based nested form by thirdly, replacing the mind3 with a positivist intellect3. The positivist intellect3 rules out metaphysics. Secondly, the object of experience2 is replaced by an empirio-schematic judgment2, where disciplinary language (relation) brings observations and measurements of phenomena (what is) into relation with mathematical or mechanical models (what ought to be). Firstly, the thing itselfand what one senses1 are replaced by Latin terms, the noumenon and its phenomena1.
Here is a diagram of the Positivist’s judgment as a category-based nested form.
Figure 03
0009 The implications of the conversion of Descartes’ dyadic formula for sensation to a modern quasi-Kantian nested form for how humans think are most curious.
It seems that the construct of the mind weaves a normal context3 and potential1, sort of like a spider spinning a web in the hope of catching a flying insect. The metaphorical flying insect, is an experience2 that immediately becomes an object2as the manifestation of the realness of the normal context3 and potential1. Plus, the object2 is inside of the observer and the thing itself1 remains (potentially) on the outside.
Similarly, for the Positivist’s judgment, the scientist weaves the normal context of the positivist intellect3 with the potential that phenomena1 may be the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon1, then waits for observations and measurements (what is) to reveal patterns that can be modeled (what ought to be) and discussed with disciplinary precision (relation between what is and what ought to be)2. One of the oldest adages in science says, “First, observe phenomena. Second, explain them.”
0010 What a curious implication.
It is almost as if the construct of the mind is looking for an actuality2 that fits its ideals. And when it does, it transforms whatever enters the realm of actuality, such as an experience2 or a measurement2, into an object2 or an empirio-schematic judgment2.
0172 Deely concludes with a sequel concerning the need to develop a semioethics.
The meeting of the two semiotic animals in the previous blog is a case study.
Surely, that brief clash of objective worlds entails ethics, however one defines the word, “ethics”.
Perhaps, the old word for “ethics” is “morality”.
0173 Deely publishes in 2010.
Thirteen years later, his postmodern definition of the human takes on new life. This examination shows how far semiotics has traveled, swirling around the stasis of a Plutonic publishing world where Cerebus guards the gates. Please throw a sop to the editors in order to publish, rather than perish. While academics guard the way to the underworld of professional success, Deely looks down from the heavens above.
And what does he say?
Humans are semiotic animals.
0174 Okay, I have to correct myself.
I don’t know whether Deely is looking down from a heavenly perch.
Surely, many will sheepishly testify to his devilish, as well as his angelic, qualities.
As a shepherd, he is always trying to lead his rag-tag flock of semioticians, explorers and Thomists. He gets so far as to impress upon every one in his flock the validity of his claim that humans are semiotic animals.
0175 Razie Mah takes that lesson to heart and asks, “If humans are semiotic animals, then how did they evolve?”
The resulting three masterworks are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
An Archaeology of the Fall appears in 2012, followed by an instructor’s guide.
How to Define the Word “Religion” appears in 2015, followed by ten primers.
The Human Niche appears in 2018, along with four commentaries.
As it turns out, no contemporary scientist takes Deely’s claim seriously. Yet, the implications are enormous. If humans are semiotic animals, then triadic relations must be key to understanding human evolution.
0176 This examination of Deely’s book takes that lesson one step further.
The specifying and exemplar signs step out from Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings as expressions of premodern scholastic insight.
The interventional sign steps out from Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols” and establishes a postmodern life of its own.
0177 Humans are semiotic animals and how we got here shines like a revelation.
