[Xmca-l] Re: Michael C. Corballis

Andy Blunden andyb@marxists.org
Sun Oct 28 16:23:13 PDT 2018


According to Corballis (from memory) Chomsky's idea is
totally at odds with the archaeological evidence available
today and actually in contradiction to Darwin's thesis of
incremental evolution. I don't know if the audio in that
link I sent works outside of OZ. The text on the page is
misleading.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 29/10/2018 8:19 AM, David H Kirshner wrote:
>
> Thanks, Henry and Andy.
>
>  
>
> Yes, George Lakoff broke with Chomsky’s generative syntax
> in the 1960s to initiate generative semantics in part
> because of disagreement with the idea of autonomous grammar.
>
>  
>
> But this response was independent of contemporary
> connectionist theory, so it could not directly counter
> Chomsky’s negative argument that some kind of grammatical
> capability must be hard wired because grammar is too
> complex to learn.
>
>  
>
> I’m not trying to resurrect Chomsky. I’m asking if anyone
> knows how/if connectionist theory eventually came to play
> a decisive role in the language-origins debate as a
> counter to Chomsky’s innatist position.
>
>  
>
> David
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> *On Behalf Of *HENRY SHONERD
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 28, 2018 11:17 AM
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Michael C. Corballis
>
>  
>
> David,
>
> A problem with Chomsky is his autonomous grammar, some
> abstract capacity for recursiveness untethered to
> semantics, meaning. Where is conslousness? 
>
> Andy,
>
> I think you are right that displacement should not be a
> dichotomous claim, that animals may have it in some
> rudimentary form, probably do from an evolutionary
> perspective. It’s just that without a language to talk to
> them about it we don’t know about what they are thinking
> about the past or the future, or their capacity for
> imagination. 
>
> Henry
>
>  
>
>  
>
>     On Oct 27, 2018, at 6:16 PM, Andy Blunden
>     <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
>      
>
>     Henry, various animals can refer to past and future
>     events and can also deceive. One could say that for
>     non-humans animals these capacities are only
>     rudimentary, but exaggerated dichotomous claims cannot
>     be substantiated. Ever seen a crow movie on youtube?
>     When I overslept this morning my cat Peek-a-Boo came
>     and slapped me on the face.There's future thinking and
>     future gestures.
>
>     David, I didn't know about Corballis arguing that
>     language developed as tool use. That is certainly not
>     my guess, just that tool-production and word-use
>     co-evolved. No the same thing. And really can't we let
>     Chomsky's theory just rest as part of the history of
>     science, like Freud's psychology?
>
>     Andy
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     Andy Blunden
>     http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>
>     On 28/10/2018 8:42 AM, David H Kirshner wrote:
>
>         Andy and Henry,
>
>          
>
>         The capacity for displacement of our immediate
>         reality in time and space would seem to be
>         dependent on neural capacity, the size and
>         organization of our brains. But the Andy and
>         Corballis’ position that language evolved
>         culturally as tool use, contradicts a more
>         strongly innatist position that grammatical
>         competence is hard-wired.
>
>          
>
>         Chomsky posited the innatist position in the
>         mid-1950s at the start of the cognitive era based
>         on the model of the serial digital computer.
>         Noting the enormous complexity of grammar,
>         Chomsky’s basic argument was that inductive
>         learning of such a complex linguistic program was
>         infeasible unless the basic structure of grammar
>         was innately give (Universal Grammar). The UG
>         hypothesis meant that learning the particular
>         grammar of one’s native language just required
>         setting some specialized switches in the pre-given
>         grammar program.
>
>          
>
>         All of this was prior to the development of
>         parallel distributed connectionist computer
>         architectures that model learning as massive
>         correlation of input and output elements rather
>         than as induction of a rule-based program. I’m
>         wondering if anyone knows how/if connectionism has
>         impacted the debate over origins of language.
>
>          
>
>         David
>
>          
>
>          
>
>         *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>         <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>         <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> *On
>         Behalf Of *HENRY SHONERD
>         *Sent:* Saturday, October 27, 2018 11:43 AM
>         *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture,
>         Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>         <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>         *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Michael C. Corballis
>
>          
>
>         Andy,
>
>         Thanks for your interest in language, if not in
>         linguistics. I recall chatting, arguing in fact,
>         with you about the origin of language in terms of
>         moldality: oral or gestural. I have a close friend
>         whose research focus has been in signed language.
>         It is his sense that language probably developed
>         through gesture as sign. Two of Corballis’
>         conjectures are of interest: 1) that  oral
>         language displaced gesture as the human form of
>         communication and 2)  that language allows us to
>         “displace" in our communication, travel in time.
>         (It also allows displacement in space, and to
>         reference imaginary worlds, another form of
>         displacement.) Animals, other than humans, can
>         communicate, but, as far as we know, cannot
>         displace in their communication. But why did
>         gesture not become the dominant form of human
>         communication? All signed languages displace. It’s
>         probably fruitless to argue about which modality
>         came first in human language. Maybe more
>         interesting and important to me is the extent to
>         which gesture is important in human communication
>         today. (Linguists categorize the gestural aspects
>         of language as paralanguage.) And why with spoken
>         and written language we so often fail to
>         communicate adequately, with one another and even
>         with ourselves. Perhaps it is because the
>         immediacy in time and space of gesture is
>         short-circuited by displacement? We get caught up
>         in our heads thinking, displaced in time and space
>         from the here and now. I have a Vipassana
>         meditation practice: I sit and focus on the
>         breath. It’s that simple. I thereby do my best to
>         be present in the here and now, to not displace.
>         This is not easy, as anyone who meditates knows.
>         But the payoff is becoming clearer and clearer to
>         me: being present: Not pushing away that which is
>         unpleasant, not grasping for that which is
>         pleasant, and not deluding myself that living in a
>         fantasy of lalaland can make me happy or able to
>         live ethically in the world. 
>
>          
>
>         It is the curse of humans that we can displace,
>         but also a (the?) key to our domination of the
>         planet. A mixed bag, so to spea:. Powerful but
>         alienated as hell. 
>
>          
>
>         Henry
>
>          
>
>              
>
>             On Oct 26, 2018, at 5:52 PM, Andy Blunden
>             <andyb@marxists.org
>             <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
>              
>
>             That's fine, Peter. On reflection I should
>             have omitted mention of "linguistics" because
>             it was not actually that linguistics I was
>             interested in.
>
>             I was driving yesterday, and I heard a radio
>             talk https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/where-did-language-come-from/10404342
>
>             This is a topic which has long interested me.
>             The speaker (which turned out to be Corballis)
>             did a great job on Chomsky and several other
>             theories that I was unaware of, I didn't get
>             to hear his punch line, but he seemed really
>             sound. So when I got home I did some internet
>             searches and found that he did support my
>             prejudice, that is, that tool-use and speech
>             co-evolved in the origins of our species.
>
>             I had made this claim in my article "Tool and
>             Sign in Vygotsky's Development" 
>             https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Tool%20and%20Sign%20in%20Vygotskys%20Development.pdf
>
>             but never had any basis for making the claim
>             and this was always preying on my conscience,
>             so I was interested to know if Corballis was
>             some crank making unfounded guesses, like me,
>             or he was the real goods. I read stuff about
>             his neuroscience research showing the
>             interconnection between handling ancient tools
>             and handling words, but this is so far out of
>             my field (insofar as I have one at all), I
>             couldn't rationally assess the idea.
>
>             So! I am very pleased with the report you have
>             given me. I have ordered his book "From Hand
>             to Mouth – The Origins of Language" and look
>             forward to its arrival in Australia, hopefully
>             before Christmas!
>
>             Andy
>
>             ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>             Andy Blunden
>             http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>
>             On 27/10/2018 3:18 AM, Peter Feigenbaum
>             [Staff] wrote:
>
>                 Andy,
>
>                  
>
>                 I'm familiar with his 1991 book entitled
>                 *The Lopsided Ape: Evolution of the
>                 Generative Mind*, 
>
>                 and I found his perspective on the
>                 evolutionary developments of brain, mind,
>                 and language to 
>
>                 be reasonable, coherent, and very
>                 compelling. When I read it (about 25 years
>                 ago), I was 
>
>                 particularly focused on the evolutionary
>                 connections between handedness, left
>                 hemispheric 
>
>                 dominance for language, and the evolution
>                 of the anatomical relations between the
>                 brain regions 
>
>                 that control the fine motor movements of
>                 the thumb and those of the tongue.
>
>                  
>
>                 So when I saw your question, I pulled the
>                 book off the shelf and re-read the parts
>                 on the neural 
>
>                 foundations of language and mental
>                 representation - and found them to be
>                 chock full of good
>
>                 and useful ideas!  Alas, while I can
>                 attest that Corballis certainly has a
>                 sound working knowledge 
>
>                 of the biological and neural structures of
>                 language, as well as the basic
>                 psychological functions that are
>                 sub-served by these structures, this
>                 seminal book doesn't really speak to his
>                 work as a linguist.
>
>                  
>
>                 In fact, the book lists him as affiliated
>                 with the Department of Psychology at the
>                 University of Aukland, and so I always
>                 assumed he was a psychologist. But if he
>                 is indeed a linguist, and if he has
>                 carried the quality and clarity of thought
>                 and understanding expressed in his older
>                 work on evolution of the human brain into
>                 his later life, I'd wager he's a pretty
>                 good linguist.
>
>                  
>
>                 May I ask what prompted your question?
>
>                  
>
>                 Cheers,
>
>                 Peter
>
>                  
>
>                      
>
>                  
>
>                 On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 3:13 AM, Andy
>                 Blunden <andyb@marxists.org
>                 <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
>                     Is anyone familiar with the work of
>                     Michael C. Corballis as a linguist? Is
>                     he any good?
>
>                     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=DwMCaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=6rABLbgQXNmFR3I1MRyXWnwkYlMV8UA9eNMBReMJ2G8&s=_MacMRb35H57uhad46QsFEcixR0ZeRymdVs7-klmN8U&e=>
>
>
>
>                  
>
>                 -- 
>
>                 Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
>
>                 Director, 
>
>                 Office of Institutional Research
>                 <https://www.fordham.edu/info/24303/institutional_research>
>
>                 Fordham University
>
>                 Thebaud Hall-202
>
>                 Bronx, NY 10458
>
>                  
>
>                 Phone: (718) 817-2243
>
>                 Fax: (718) 817-3817
>
>                 email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
>                 <mailto:pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu>
>
>              
>
>          
>
>      
>
>  
>

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