Download Methodology for understanding the process of becoming human

Chapter 1
Research strategy for becoming human
David Dwyer, Michigan State University
February 3, 2011
This paper is a working draft. Comments are welcome. Do not quote without permission.
Introduction
I use the term research strategy instead of methodology to emphasize that this is a way of
looking at the problem and not a procedure for discovering the answers.
Domains of investigation
This strategy investigates the process of becoming human as a consequence of the dialectical
(coevolutionary) interactions of four domains: the human physical form (body), culture (using
the institution as the analytic unit, language (understood as symbolic interaction) and the mind
(with emphasis on the complex self). A dialectical relationship is one in which one domain can
influence and be influenced by another. Some examples of this type of interaction is given in the
section on dialectical interactions.
1) Body
a) For a deeper treatment of this topic, see Chapter 4: symbolic interaction and body
b) The evolution of the human body is the most salient domain of investigation, and the
most investigated.
c) Early focus on upright posture and bipedalism
d) More recent focus on vocal tract and brain modules: Evidence shows that the vocal tract
evolved in the Lower Paleolithic and by 50KYA it was fully evolved. (Completion point
may have to be reinterpreted as 200 KYA).
e) Similar evidence for modular development of the brain: Broca’s area (production:
articulation and syntax); Wernicke’s area (comprehension and vocabulary); Arcuate
fasciculus: (connects the two areas)
2) Culture:
a) For a deeper treatment of this topic, see Chapter 7: The institution as an analytic unit of
culture.
b) The institutional lens
c) Cassirer (1944:24) Essay on Man: Obviously this [human] world forms no exception to
those biological rules which govern the life of all the other organisms. Yet in the human
world we find a new characteristic which appears to be the distinctive mark of human
life. The functional circle of man is not only quantitatively enlarged: it has also
undergone a qualitative change. … This new acquisition transforms the whole of human
life. As compared with the other animals, man lives not merely in a broader reality; he
lives, so to speak, in a new dimension of reality.
3) Symbolic interaction
a) For a deeper treatment of this topic, see Chapter 2: The consequences of symbolic
interaction and Chapter 3: Paratax, syntax and case
b) The term language is flawed because it is undefined.
i)
Meanings range from animal calls to syntax.
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ii)
I use language to cover communication systems that use three interconnecting
semiological systems: tactic (consisting of either Paratax or syntax); lexical and
representational.
c) This kind of communication is termed symbolic interaction and involves a dialectic
between structure (the semiological system which generates messages) and interaction,
the use of messages between subjects (agents).
i)
Traditionally, language structure has been more salient than practice
ii)
Important contributors to this field are George H Mead, Ernst Cassirer, Berger and
Luckmann who emphasize the importance of interaction.
iii) Symbolic interaction crucial to understanding the process of becoming human
because it enables intersubjectivity, a complex self and social institutions, as is
explained in chapter 2.
4) Mind
a) For a deeper treatment of this topic, see Chapter 6: Symbolic interaction and the
evolution of the mind
b) Often confused with brain
c) Question of the complex self
d) Issue of consciousness and self-consciousness
e) Partition of into public and private components
f) The complex self as a precondition for culture
g) George H Mead, Hallowell, and others.
5) Examples of dialectical interactions
Culture
Symbolic
Body
Mind
Tools 
Tools 
 referential signs
Brain structure (Broca)
Brain structure (Broca
& Wernicke)
referential signs
Institution 
 syntax, negotiation
Referential signs 
Mindful other, self
awareness, private self
Natural selection
Natural selection provides the foundation for understanding the process of becoming human. I
understand natural selection to be the narrowing of the gene pool of the individual and the group,
thereby increasing the amount of genetic material favorable for survival (of the individual or
group) in a given environment. Although the process of natural selection is well understood,
there are four issues which are relevant to the research strategy developed here. These are 1)
gradualism versus saltation, 2) sequencing, and 3)the role of behavior
Gradualism versus saltation
The gradualist versus saltationist debate is different from the steady state versus punctuated
argument put forth by Gould and others, which concerns whether evolution takes place at a
constant rate or consists of periods of relatively rapid genetic change and periods of relatively
little change. In contrast the gradualist versus saltationist debate concerns whether the evolution
of one species consists of a sequence of gradual changes or whether from time to time there are
leaps (saltations) producing a a major genetic change.
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The problem with saltations is not that they don’t occur, but how frequently they occur. This is
because some saltations are only apparent saltations. An apparent saltation is a gross
evolutionary change that can be, but hasn’t been, broken down into a series of intermediate steps.
I use the term sequencing to describe the process of deconstructing apparent saltations into a
series of gradual changes.
Staging
In the human fossil record, the postulation of saltations is rare, and purported saltations are often
removed with the discovery of fossils that provide evidence of intermediate stages. However, in
the behavioral domains of culture, language and self, this is more difficult, owing to the lack of
fossil evidence. As a result, saltations were frequently invoked to account for the evolution of
human culture and, human language. Early discussion of human language and culture were
generally entitled the Origin of Language and the Origin of Culture, suggesting that both
developments appeared one day as fully developed saltations. More recent treatments favor the
use of the term evolution in place of the word origin and were more open to the possibility of
intermediate stages.
Staging is a strategy which attempts to reduce what appear to be major evolutionary
developments, like culture, symbolic interaction and the mind, into a series of evolutionary steps.
Chapters 03 (Paratax, syntax and case and chapter 5 (The evolution of the referential sign)
provide ways in which the composition of modern human could have evolved in steps.
Earlier hypothesized stages, such as the evolution of culture from savage to barbarian to
civilization posited by Morgan (1818-1881) were on the right track, but were simply wrong, and
Eurocentric. Our approach is to consider the institution as the analytical unit of culture, Chapter
7, and in chapter 8 we discuss the interrelation of symbolic interaction and the evolution of
culture in the context of staging.
Early linguists posited evolutionary stages of language from Analytic (Thai) to Synthetic
(Sanskrit) to Polysynthetic (Inuit), and while this approach was on the right tract as far as staging
is concerned, but this proposal did not prove useful. Chapter 3, Paratax syntax and case
examines language structure as a complex system of representational signs, referential signs and
tactics which offers a different potential for sequencing, which is discussed there and in chapter
5, The evolution of the referential sign.
When it comes to the evolution of the mind, psychologists like Piaget posed a series of stages
that demonstrated the evolution of one’s understanding of the physical world. We propose a
similar investigation of the self, a part of mind. were well aware of the evolution of the self as a
series of stages, ontogenetically. Chapter 6, drawing of a discussion of symbolic interaction in
Chapter 2, discuses the role of symbolic interaction in the development of the self.
Behavior
Part of the reason we suspect saltations when it comes to behavioral development, such as the
acquisition of referential signs is the failure to recognize that aspects of this behavior can be
found in our phylogenetic predecessors, as evidenced by similar behavior in related species. For
example, it was thought that the use of referential signs was a uniquely human behavior, until it
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was demonstrated that other apes have the same ability. Discovering these abilities represents a
strategy for reducing saltations to a sequence of gradual changes.
This strategy was clearly pointed out by Lashley (19XX: 134-5), “I am coming more and more to
the conviction that the rudiments of every human behavioral mechanism will be found far down
in the evolutionary scale and also represented even in primitive activities of the nervous system.
If there exists, in human cerebral action, processes which seem fundamentally different or
inexplicable in terms of our present construct of elementary physiology of integration, then it is
probable that the construct is incomplete or mistaken, even for the levels of behavior to which it
is applied.”
It is important to recognize that behavioral changes are also part of the selectional environment.
For example, as suggested below, tool use may have led to the use of referential signs and
subsequently the use of referential signs may have assisted in selecting genes which would
facilitate their use. Thus, rather than suggest that evolution is caused by genetic changes, we
should recognize that environmental changes, including behavioral changes, select for genes
already present in the gene pool. This view would mean that while genes change through
mutation, these changes first enter the gene pool with little or no effect on the organism.
This view opposes the rather common, but wrong position of mutation-driven evolution. This
contrary view is often invoked to explain the emergence of language (, Klein and Edgar 19xx).
“In the book's brief final chapter, Klein and Edgar claim that the cultural explosion of 50,000
years ago was most likely triggered by the emergence of modern human language, and that
language in turn arose through some kind of mutation affecting the way the human brain was
organized” (Bickerton 1990). While Bickerton is critical of a major saltation enabling, he is not
critical of the mutation-driven perspective.
This view leaves the impression that our ancestors were simply waiting for a mutation to pop up
so that they could get on with being human. In contrast, a behavior-driven selection model
presumes that there are all sorts of resources in the gene pool, such as genetic material that would
facilitate symbolic interaction, but that these resources are merely potential until an behavioral
change arises that would be further facilitated by these genetic resources, at which point natural
selection goes to work and this material becomes more abundant in the population’s gene pool.
Sequencing
The strategy of staging relies on the principle of exaptation (formerly known as preadaptation.
Exaptations occur when one evolutionary change opens up new opportunities in other areas. For
example, an opposable thumb, representing an adaptation for brachiating, also enables the hand
for holding other items like stones. By identifying these exaptations, we can establish
exaptational sequences.
Examples of linking in human evolution
 Upright posture, brain size and vocal tract; Brain size versus brain modules
 Tool traditions: Pebble Tools Chopping Tools Acheulean Hand axes
 Institutional Evolution: Institutions are socially constructed
 Agreements between individualsgeneric roles
 Primary institution (family) Secondary institutions
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




Egalitarian institutionsExploitative institutions
Words: instinctive utterances  referential signs
Sounds: single syllable bursts  complex syllable structure
Sentences: one wordparatax (two word)syntax
Mind: Awareness (intentionality). Dennett: self awareness  other awareness  aware of
other being aware of self  public and private self
Summary
Our research strategy involves the investigation of the four domains of human development, the
body, culture, symbolic interaction and the mind from a dialectical, that is coevolutionary
perspective. The strategy also seeks to reduce apparent saltations through staging and
sequencing. To understand the working of natural selection we include the individuals acquired
behavior as part of the selectional environment.
The reformulating of the concept of culture and the recharacterizing of linguistic structure not
only helps us in discovering stages and sequences and thus reducing the saltations needed to
account for the process of becoming human, but at the same time, we gain a clarification of these
concepts as well. These include a clarification of the concept of culture, of language including
syntax, and the self, and its importance to the process of becoming human.
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