[Xmca-l] Re: Michael C. Corballis

[Andy Blunden]

Interesting, Peter.

Corballis, oddly in my view, places a lot of weight in 
so-called mirror neurons to explain perception of the 
intentionality of others. It seems blindingly obvious to me 
that cooperative activity, specifically participating in 
projects in which individuals share a common not-present 
object, is a form of behaviour which begets the necessary 
perceptive abilities. I have also long been of the view that 
delayed gratification, as a precondition for sharing and 
turn-taking, as a matter of fact, is an important aspect of 
sociality fostering the development of speech, and the 
upright gait which frees the hands for carrying food back to 
camp where it can be shared is important. None of which 
presupposes tools, only cooperation.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 17/11/2018 12:36 am, Peter Feigenbaum [Staff] wrote:
> If I might chime in to this discussion:
>
> I submit that the key cooperative activity underlying 
> speech communication is *turn-taking*. I don't know how 
> that activity or rule came into being,
> but once it did, the activity of *exchanging* utterances 
> became possible. And with exchange came the 
> complementarity of speaking and
> listening roles, and the activity of alternating 
> conversational roles and mental perspectives. Turn-taking 
> is a key process in human development.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 9:21 PM Andy Blunden 
> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
>     Oddly, Amazon delivered the book to me yesterday and I
>     am currently on p.5. Fortunately, Corballis provides a
>     synopsis of his book at the end, which I
>     sneak-previewed last night.
>
>     The interesting thing to me is his claim, similar to
>     that of Merlin Donald, which goes like this.
>
>     It would be absurd to suggest that proto-humans
>     discovered that they had this unique and wonderful
>     vocal apparatus and decided to use it for speech.
>     Clearly_there was rudimentary language before speech
>     was humanly possible_. In development, a behaviour is
>     always present before the physiological adaptations
>     which facilitate it come into being. I.e, proto-humans
>     found themselves in circumstances where it made sense
>     to develop interpersonal, voluntary communication, and
>     to begin with they used what they had - the ability to
>     mime and gesture, make facial expressions and
>     vocalisations (all of which BTW can reference
>     non-present entities and situations) This is an
>     activity which further produces the conditions for its
>     own development. Eventually, over millions of years,
>     the vocal apparatus evolved under strong selection
>     pressure due to the practice of non-speech
>     communication as an integral part of their
>     evolutionary niche. In other words, rudimentary
>     wordless speech gradually became modern speech, along
>     with all the accompanying facial expressions and hand
>     movements.
>
>     It just seems to me that, as you suggest, collective
>     activity must have been a part of those conditions
>     fostering communication (something found in our
>     nearest evolutionary cousins who also have the
>     elements of rudimentary speech)  - as was increasing
>     tool-using, tool-making, tool-giving and tool-instructing.
>
>     Andy
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     Andy Blunden
>     http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>     <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ethicalpolitics.org_ablunden_index.htm&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=VlOXr8x02-mghKHGod2LwGx8_X-LHNRmDI_elI-7rKI&s=A3k5oeQ13zGCPUbWibdOb2KNZT4q__fLyCwugyULUDw&e=>
>
>     On 16/11/2018 12:58 pm, Arturo Escandon wrote:
>>     Dear Andy,
>>
>>     Michael Tomasello has made similar claims, grounding
>>     the surge of articulated language on innate
>>     co-operativism and collective activity.
>>
>>     https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-child-language/90B84B8F3BB2D32E9FA9E2DFAF4D2BEB
>>     <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.cambridge.org_core_books_cambridge-2Dhandbook-2Dof-2Dchild-2Dlanguage_90B84B8F3BB2D32E9FA9E2DFAF4D2BEB&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=VlOXr8x02-mghKHGod2LwGx8_X-LHNRmDI_elI-7rKI&s=vxJZooXRDYwTRrM4dzWBbLfUhF9HhmUvU3ouq6sbwPI&e=>
>>
>>     Best
>>
>>     Arturo
>>
>>
>>     -- 
>>     Sent from Gmail Mobile
>
>
>
> -- 
> Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
> Director,
> Office of Institutional Research 
> <https://www.fordham.edu/info/24303/institutional_research>
> Fordham University
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>
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