
Recursive language and modern imagination acquired 70k years ago: hypothesis - JackFr
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-recursive-language-modern-simultaneously-years.html
======
danans
Its hard for humans today to visualize higher dimensional physical spaces,
even though after study, we can easily reason about them mathematically.

I wonder if that's analogous to the barrier that was crossed 70k years ago
according to the theory in the article.

However, we routinely visualize high dimensional information spaces without
even realizing it (though probably through some heavy dimensionality
reduction). It's almost like we have the hardware for high dimensional
reasoning, and some software to apply it to physical dimensions (the language
of math), but no drivers to accelerate the latter with the former.

~~~
marcosdumay
I don't think we _visualize_ high dimensional information spaces. We have
tools for dealing with them, but of a completely different nature.

~~~
filoeleven
I understand visual perceptions and descriptions to be literal mappings of
high-dimensional information spaces.

Smooth vs rough vs rippled vs grainy, fuzzy vs hairy vs spiky, striped vs
mottled, etc. We get a lot of understanding of a material’s properties by
looking at it, coupled with prior experience with similar-looking ones.

There’s even more richness involved when you take human cultures and other
senses into account. I’d be surprised if I tried to turn what looks like a
doorknob and it didn’t wiggle even a little; every locked one I’ve met does.
I’d be shocked if my hand passed right through it instead. And when applied to
other people, my God! It’s usually easy to tell when someone is angry or
bored, often even if it’s aimed at us vs some third party—how many dimensions
does _that_ encapsulate?

Many animals are clearly capable of this too. The language appears to be the
leap. It makes me wonder even more about crows talking to each other about
which humans feed them, and what a shotgun looks like and can do.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yeah, we already live in n-space. 3D is a convenient fiction that models
reality in very specific instances.

------
mxcrossb
This Rio Journal seems to pride itself on letting you publish non traditional
papers. In this case, we have something that seems clearly marked as a
hypothesis. I won’t comment on the value of such an approach. But I will say
that it’s frustrating that such a publisher would take a speculative article
like that, and pick a title like “recursive language and modern imagination
_were acquired_ 70k years ago”

~~~
cryptonector
In science we only have hypotheses -- disproven and as-yet-not-disproven.
Granted, some hypotheses are less supported by data, often due to lack of
data, and this one might be such a hypothesis, but, in science rejecting an
idea as a hypothesis is oxymoronic.

~~~
uryga
yeah but presenting a hypothesis as fact (as the title does) is misleading at
best. something like "A new hypothesis re: the development of recursive
language" would be better

~~~
cryptonector
The second paragraph of TFA starts with "This new hypothesis" and goes from
there. Titles are titles -- they've been clickbait since before we had mice to
click on links with.

~~~
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
Every newspaper headline ever, is a form of clickbait.

------
waserwill
To suggest that modern imagination and the recursive thinking necessary for
language evolved _after_ humans started making complex tools (which required
hierarchical recursive processes to make) is, to me, dubious. The tool-
creation/language similarity was commented upon recently [0].

[0]
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2017.0052)

~~~
mannykannot
The article mentions one such tool - needles with eyes. As this innovation is
mentioned, I imagine the time of its invention is consistent with the
hypothesis. Do you have in mind specific tools from before 70kya that seem to
require recursive thinking?

I am not sure what would constitute recursion in tools - maybe something like
an atlatl, sling or bow, where a tool is applied to another tool? These
particular examples do not seem to challenge the timing of the hypothesis.

------
toasterlovin
A problem that this hypothesis has to contend with is that there are
populations of humans (Khoi san and African pygmies) who split off from the
rest of humanity > 70k years ago, yet who seem pretty modern.

~~~
foldr
What could be more "modern" in this case than existing at the present moment?

~~~
erikpukinskis
From Wikipedia:

 _As an analytical concept and normative ideal, modernity is closely linked to
the ethos of philosophical and aesthetic modernism; political and intellectual
currents that intersect with the Enlightenment; and subsequent developments
such as existentialism, modern art, the formal establishment of social
science, and contemporaneous antithetical developments such as Marxism. It
also encompasses the social relations associated with the rise of capitalism,
and shifts in attitudes associated with secularisation and post-industrial
life (Berman 2010, 15–36)._

~~~
toasterlovin
I meant modern in the sense that the person you're responding to was using it.
I'm not sure what their point was; as far as I can tell they were agreeing
with me.

The Khoi San diverged from the rest of humanity roughly 200k years ago. Yet
they are basically compatibly with modern humans. As far as I am aware, they
have recursive language and normal imaginations. My point was that this theory
would have to deal with the fact that human populations who split much, much
longer ago than 70k years ago appear to have the same basic brain
functionality as the rest of humanity.

I guess, based on what someone else said, the theory is positing that people
with the mutation could bootstrap the process in people who don't have it. I
dunno, in light of the Khoi San, things start to diverge pretty far from what
I would describe as a parsimonious explanation. Plus we're talking
hypothetically about what was going on in the minds of people who lived 70k
years ago. There are a lot of theories that could be correct, since we have
literally no direct evidence of the presence of recursive language (or the
lack thereof).

~~~
foldr
The Khoi San are human and just as "modern" as us, given that we all exist
right now.

~~~
toasterlovin
_Side note: you 're being pedantic. When discussing deep human history,
'modern human' has a meaning beyond just the dictionary meaning of the word
'modern' (being of a recent vintage). It is used to contrast modern humans
with our quite complex behavior vs. archaic humans with their (apparently)
much less complex behavior._

But anyway, my point doesn't depend on how you define 'modern human', since
not only do the Khoi San co-exist with the rest of humanity in the current
moment, but they are not really significantly different from the rest of
humanity in a behavioral sense. So by both definitions they are 'modern
humans'. Which gets to my actual point: a theory which posits that
behaviorally modern humans have their genesis only 70k years ago has some
explaining to do in light of the fact that the Khoi San split from the rest of
humanity about 200k years ago, yet are more or less the same as the rest of
humanity.

~~~
foldr
>It is used to contrast modern humans with our quite complex behavior vs.
archaic humans with their (apparently) much less complex behavior.

Yes, I know - that was my point. You seem to be assuming that we in the West
are at the apex of development while the Khoi San are to be evaluated by the
degree to which their society resembles Western societies. Who knows - perhaps
the Khoi San think that they are more modern than us and are waiting for us to
catch up.

We all have ancestors going back to the first humans. No present human society
is more "archaic" than any other, unless you think that human societies are
somehow predestined to develop along a certain course.

So I do object to calling the Khoi San "pretty modern", as if they are somehow
being stick-in-the-muds by not developing along exactly the same path as the
West.

~~~
toasterlovin
> You seem to be assuming that we in the West are at the apex of development
> while the Khoi San are to be evaluated by the degree to which their society
> resembles Western societies.

No, I am not. I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. On the contrary,
my whole argument depends on the Khoi San not being significantly different,
behaviorally, from the rest of humanity.

Here are quotes of what I said. The only reason I didn't use even stronger
language is that there are, in fact, significant genetic differences between
the Khoi San and the rest of humanity (that's how we know they diverged so
long ago). But anyway, the quotes:

> (Khoi san and African pygmies) [...] who seem pretty modern.

Edit in reply to your edit: "pretty" in a colloquial sense means "very". As
in, "it's pretty hot out today" = "it's very hot out today". Even the
dictionary definition is "to a moderately high degree".

> Yet they are basically compatibly with modern humans. As far as I am aware,
> they have recursive language and normal imaginations.

> Appear to have the same basic brain functionality as the rest of humanity.

> they are not really significantly different from the rest of humanity in a
> behavioral sense

> are more or less the same as the rest of humanity

~~~
foldr
> The only reason I didn't use even stronger language is that there are, in
> fact, significant genetic differences between the Khoi San and the rest of
> humanity (that's how we know they diverged so long ago)

We have no evidence that the differences are particularly significant to
everyday life. But in any case, your statement here makes no sense. The fact
that the Khoi San are (to whatever minuscule extent) genetically different
from “us” does not make them any less modern than us. Divergence is
symmetrical: as we diverged from the Khoi San, they diverged from us, and
there’s no sense in which they’re “older” than we are. So I still don’t
understand why you are only willing to credit them with being modern “to a
moderately high degree”. There’s nothing to qualify. They’re humans just like
we are.

~~~
toasterlovin
A couple of things:

1\. You are not interpreting the use of the modifier 'pretty' correctly. It is
used for emphasis or to add or increase some property; to imply that something
is more than usual. To say that 'it is pretty hot today' means that it hotter
than if you merely said 'it is hot today'. Thus, when I say 'pretty modern', I
am indicating a degree of modernity that is more modern than simply 'modern'.
As far as I can tell, you are interpreting 'pretty' to mean that something is
lacking in a quality or falls slightly short of possessing a quality. But that
is the opposite meaning of the word. If I were trying to detract from their
modernity, I would have said that they are 'kind of modern' or 'somewhat
modern'.

2\. The bigger picture, though, is that you're focusing on a single word
choice instead of literally everything else I've written, including the
crucial point that _I have to agree with you for the point that I was actually
making to hold true_.

~~~
foldr
That is not what 'pretty' means, FYI (check the dictionary definition, which
in the case of the OED gives "somewhat" as a synonym). It's sometimes used to
convey a stronger proposition via understatement, but that doesn't come across
in your original post. Nor does it jibe with the rest of what you said (e.g.
that the Khoi San are "more or less" the same as the rest of humanity).

I'm glad we agree on the rest.

------
lordnacho
So if it happens as in the synopsis, it would have been pretty weird to grow
up as one of the first kids with recursive language? And I guess the gene
takes over the world because well, you want to mate with other people who
understand prepositions.

~~~
rjf72
As the article mentions it's only 70k years ago that we start seeing
unambiguous indicators of intelligence. The normal figure for this indicator,
the upper paleolithic revolution, is 50k years. In any case that's where we
first start seeing significant and then rapidly widespread signs of
intelligence - fishing, extensive adornment, wide artifact collections, burial
ceremony, and much more.

The point here is that the archaeological record seems to indicate that it's
like one day we simply 'woke up.' Whomever was fortunate enough to experience
such a mutation first would have had a _tremendous_ competitive advantage. The
degree in intellectual advancement is such that they would have probably been
significantly better at just about everything -- most importantly in surviving
and spreading their genes. Now take this person and what would likely have
been their vast number of offspring. They could effectively take over the
world. And I suppose, in a manner of speaking, they did.

~~~
xenadu02
It is entirely possible the capacity for this existed but was not being used.
That would explain why it spread so rapidly... perhaps most humans already had
the capacity?

~~~
pickdenis
I think it's implied that the capacity was there, just no impetus.

------
jdormit
> To understand the importance of PFS, consider these two sentences: "A dog
> bit my friend" and "My friend bit a dog." It is impossible to distinguish
> the difference in meaning using words or grammar alone, since both words and
> grammatical structure are identical in these two sentences.

Am I missing something here? Those two sentences are absolutely
distinguishable grammatically - in one of the them the subject is "a dog" and
the object is "my friend" and in the other the subject is "my friend" and the
object is "a dog".

I realize this is kind of nitpick, but at the very least this is a very bad
example to use to demonstrate the importance of this PFS concept.

~~~
chowells
You're confusing semantics with grammar. They have identical grammar.

"(A dog) bit (my friend)." "(My friend) bit (a dog)." Both parse as "(compound
subject) verb (compound object)." Both "my" and "a" function as adjectives
modifying the single noun after them.

The sentences have identical parse trees, even when considering the types of
the nodes. They are grammatically identical.

~~~
riffraff
Are they though? Isn't 'a' an indeterminate article and 'my' a pronoun?

I get the point of the example, but it seems different at the grammatical
level too.

Subject/object should be at a different level above grammar.

~~~
Smithalicious
"A dog bit a friend" and "my dog bit my friend" still work the same, though.

~~~
riffraff
Indeed, I think it's just an incorrect example, the point gets across anyway.

------
Merrill
There seem to be counterexamples.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child#Raised_in_confinem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child#Raised_in_confinement)

"Isabelle (1938) was almost seven years old when she was discovered. She had
spent the first years of her life isolated in a dark room with her deaf-mute
mother as her only contact. Only seven months later, she had learned a
vocabulary of around 1,500 to 2,000 words. She is reported to have acquired
normal linguistic abilities."

------
pbar
I wonder about similar future change in imagination. Almost certainly possible
since there's precedent for it happening, but the hard part is imagining what
sort of thought it would enable.

~~~
de1978st
Just like the dark ages, particularly in medicine, practitioners followed text
from hundreds of years prior, without any perceptions without. Only memorizing
and being SME on past thought was relevant.

------
clumpthump
"PFS" sounds a lot like the MERGE operation of minimalist (natural language)
syntax, which Chomsky has similarly linked to behavioural modernity.

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/06/20/noam-chomsky-the-
sc...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/06/20/noam-chomsky-the-science-
language/) (not too much info here, but the best I can find at the moment)

------
dharma1
Quite remarkable a single mutation gave us the tools to dominate the earth.

I guess the ability to make plans, communicate and execute them and reflect on
what worked and what didn't to improve the plan making endows us with
significant predictive power compared to the rest of the planet. Perhaps in
similar ways AI will endow some people (or itself) with predictive power
beyond our own, allowing those who yield it to dominate the rest

~~~
lawlessone
>Perhaps in similar ways AI will endow some people (or itself) with predictive
power beyond our own, allowing those who yield it to dominate the rest

Hasn't that already happened?

Bezos Gates Zuckerburg Musk?

------
b6840442
[https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/h...](https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-
human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c) \-- also happened about
70k years ago. Very interesting time to be a human

------
arthev
How many artefacts that show imagination and will survive >70k years have you
made lately?

Are you intelligent?

~~~
whatshisface
Most people in this thread have taken part in the production of non-
biodegradable trash. A huge fraction of ancient artifacts were trash, so don't
feel bad about your legacy - it's typical. ;)

------
pjdorrell
This is quite similar in some ways to my own theory that I posted recently at
[https://whatismusic.info/blog/HypothesisMusicWasALanguageSys...](https://whatismusic.info/blog/HypothesisMusicWasALanguageSystem.html),
because it postulates a sudden transition from non-recursive language to
recursive language. The one difference in my theory is that I assume that the
original non-recursive language was musical (with one tune equals one
meaning). And musical language could not evolve into a more efficient and
expressive recursive form of language - it had to be replaced.

------
bgorman
If anyone is interested in early human development/the onset of civilization I
highly recommend the book "Sapiens". Really compelling pop-science book if you
are interested into that kind of thing.

------
photojosh
I have a little Romulus & Remus & wolf statue at home, from my wife's
grandfather when he passed. I wanted it because of its ties to Girard's
mimetic theory. Now I have a 2nd reason.

------
barking
Hadn't people spread out from Africa, longer ago than that?

------
GolDDranks
I wonder if John von Neumann would have had some toddler friends of similar
level of genius, would they have invented a twin speak for a "new level" of
humanity.

~~~
whatshisface
Intelligence variations in modern times seem pretty big, but they're nothing
compared to the difference between a person who can talk and one who can only
make indicative noises.

------
bookofjoe
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20613863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20613863)

------
anon44
But some races were likely separated for longer than that, so these mutations
are likely uneven across populations. Very disturbing if true.

~~~
gingabriska
Or they seperated after having this mutation since we've no evidence that any
specific ethic group (I assume you used race for this?) has inability of
learning a recursive language.

------
coldtea
Does that mean that Scheme and other languages with TCO help make more
imaginative programmers?

~~~
chowells
This is talking about recursion in the grammar of the language. I can't think
of a common programming language that doesn't have at least some recursive
elements. Nested arithmetic operations are a common example.

~~~
coldtea
> _This is talking about recursion in the grammar of the language._

I know, it talks about early humans development. I just wanted to extend it
(semi-jockingly) to programming.

> _I can 't think of a common programming language that doesn't have at least
> some recursive elements_

Sure, but recursion is more idiomatic/powerful in some languages than others.
In nested arithmetic operations it is barely apparent.

