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Eggtimer
HotSauce Lover

Registered: 05/04/13
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Re: What do you guys think of the stoned ape theory? [Re: koraks]
#21954794 - 07/17/15 04:13 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Isn't the syntax-laden system the kind of thing Mckenna is always talking about with DMT/shrooms that the entities want you to make language?
Human language evolved with a ‘Big Bang’, study says
Quote:
Prevailing theories suggest that human language evolved slowly from a series of simple grunts and noises, to a complex spoken language between 75,000 and 100,000 years ago.
But now, according to a new study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers believe the rise of complex language took place relatively rapidly, not as a series of gradual changes as has been described previously.
The Big Bang of language
Some scholars have argued that we first started using a kind of “proto-language” before developing a language that included syntax, or rules that organized word and sentence structures. In the new study, researchers said some words show signs that they descended from a syntax-laden system, not just a collection of simple grunts and sounds.
Study author Shigeru Miyagawa, a linguistics professor at MIT, told redOrbit via email that cognitive developments in the brain allowed for the quick rise of complex language.
[STORY: Fossil jaw pushes human origins back 400,00 years]
“One way to think about this is that the brain, which had been growing ever larger for over a million years, at some point 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, hit a critical point, and all the resources that nature had provided came together in a Big Bang and language emerged pretty much as we know it today,” Miyagawa wrote. “It looks counterintuitive given how enormously complex language is, but when one considers that the brain was getting ready for it for more than million years, it isn’t too far-fetched.”
“This is also around the time that you see other higher-cognitive achievements, such as painted and carved art, refined tools, and sophisticated weapons,” he noted.
Strange apes
In support of their hypothesis, the researchers wrote in their study that even a single word can be “as complex as an entire phrase.”
For example, Miyagawa said, the word “nationalization” starts with “nation,” a noun; adds “-al” to form an adjective; adds “-iz(a)” to create a verb; and ends with “-tion,” to make yet another noun with a completely new meaning. The study authors noted that these same syntax rules can be found in Romance languages that have been previously described as coming from formless proto-language.
[STORY: Spanish is the happiest language; Chinese could be happier]
In writing to redOrbit, Miyagawa emphasized that something must have ‘clicked’ in the expanding brains of humans that allowed us to start putting together the complex language were speak, hear and read today.
“Alfred Russel Wallace, cofounder with Darwin of the idea of evolution through natural selection, noted that by natural evolution, we ought have a brain that’s just a bit better than that of the apes,” he wrote. “Yet, what we ended up with is a brain that is way more powerful than it should be if it were just part of natural selection.”
“There are many disagreements about language, but one thing that virtually everyone agrees on is that humans are the sole owners of such a complex and rich system,” Miyagawa added. “There has never been anything like it before and nothing since, except in our species.”
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Sophistic Radiance
Free sVs!


Registered: 07/11/06
Posts: 43,135
Loc: Center of the Universe
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Re: What do you guys think of the stoned ape theory? [Re: Rebelutionsssss]
#21954796 - 07/17/15 04:14 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I definitely think the stoned ape theory makes sense, even if there isn't much direct evidence for it. I mean, to be fair, it's a difficult hypothesis to gather evidence either for or against. But I think it's clear that psychedelics were widely used in human prehistory, there are mummies buried with psychedelic drugs that go back many thousands of years. AFAIK Homo sapiens or a close ancestor had existed for tens of thousands of years before they started actually speaking languages, which does seem to suggest that this event occurred rapidly and spontaneously. Psychedelics seem like a viable explanation to me. But I am not an expert in any of these fields.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
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Re: What do you guys think of the stoned ape theory? [Re: Eggtimer]
#21954808 - 07/17/15 04:31 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Eggtimer said: Isn't the syntax-laden system the kind of thing Mckenna is always talking about with DMT/shrooms that the entities want you to make language?
Possibly, but why couldn't it be just an inherent aspect of the ape brain that was emphasized and further selected and developed as a result of our need to communicate in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle? Apes communicate vocally as well, as do most other species, and our adaptation to our living conditions required more complex communication, so that ability gained relative importance in sexual selection. In that line of thought, psychedelics don't necessarily come in. It's nice to throw them in there if you're fond of psychedelics, but I'm wary of building theory on the basis of a desire the legitimate one's own behavior. It doesn't necessarily result in bad theory, but it does bring the risk of a huge bias, which is very apparent in the way McKenna cherry-picked and interpreted his evidence.
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Eggtimer
HotSauce Lover

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Re: What do you guys think of the stoned ape theory? [Re: koraks]
#21954833 - 07/17/15 05:05 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Totally could be. I don't think it would just be either or but both. If we are able to ever simulate the human brain on a computer we can make a fake environment for it and see what happens when it encounters psychoactive substances. They think people of the amazon may of learned to make aya by watching jaguars eat the different leaves.
I wish they could do research on this things with people in a MRI or something. I had an experience one time on DMT where words triggered flashes of images relating to the word and relating words in an instant while I was hearing the words. It seems obvious but I never really considered how language must work in the brain before then.
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thebitterbuffalo26
Fartyr



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Re: What do you guys think of the stoned ape theory? [Re: Eggtimer]
#21954862 - 07/17/15 05:39 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Y'all I'm serious, like forty thousand years ago humans from the north, like Asians and Caucasians interbred with Neanderthals, resulting in an approximate three percent of our current genome. It coincides with a lot of stuff. From there humans were then able to domesticate themselves, essentially turning themselves from wolves to dogs. It's interesting to note that Africans have zero percent Neanderthal because of geographic restrictions.
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thebitterbuffalo26
Fartyr



Registered: 04/18/15
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Only meaning they are more pure perhaps
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,797
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Re: What do you guys think of the stoned ape theory? [Re: Rebelutionsssss]
#21954867 - 07/17/15 05:46 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Psychedelics are like red peppers, an aversive stimulus which can become an acquired taste to someone who has sufficient intelligence already.
Red peppers and psychedelics by nature are DANGER! DO NOT TOUCH! to your lessed developed brain parts. You can learn to enjoy them and achieve benefit from the conquest though.
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drege
This space for lease

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Re: What do you guys think of the stoned ape theory? [Re: Asante] 1
#21955100 - 07/17/15 08:07 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I all of you and your differing points you bring. I know we can intelegently comunicate these things. Koraks, I should have suggested a darwinian approach to evolution; Quote:
according to Darwin's theory of evolution, organisms that are better adapted to their environment tend to survive longer and transmit more of their genetic characteristics to succeeding generations than do those that are less well adapted.
Yes it a goddamn stretch, yes its biased, and ohgoddamnright I wish there was big science involved in entheogens, MRI's and or some kind of comprehensive genome sequencing or benchmarking interpolating with our favorite substances to learn their true impact throughtout time, strike one more failure due to religion; the systematic suppression of perceived dangerous drug study, there should be entire fields devoted to them. And yea, McKenna was a fucking crackpot, good for you taking info/ideas with a grain of salt as to who its coming from; you wouldn't take the word of god as truth from the rev al sharpton or george bush Sr now would you?
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