I'm posting twice (once to this post and once to SD's), forgive me.
: Humans don't speak complex languaged unless taught them
: either.
But I wasn't talking about individuals. Our *species* is the owner of a complex language, while our experimented-on lab cousins are merely borrowing it from us. ;)
: ...Humans have, for
: whatever chance reasons, been lucky enough to develop
: more complex systems of grunts and gestures, and as
: they become more complex we have become more capable
: of creating even MORE complex systems.
Semantic point here -- it's not more complex systems of grunts and gestures that has led to more complexity (of any kind). It's development of a few parts of the cerebrum. You've got to have the underlying machinery to make the thing work.
: (Something like
: the principle behind Moore's Law; when technology is
: more advanced, it advances more quickly. When culture
: is more advanced, it advanced more quickly).
This is a good analogy, and might I add that technology and culture (in the human sociological sense) are interdependent?
: And now, since we've had however long to develop these
: complex systems of grunts and gestures, we can teach
: them to simpler apes who haven't had thousands of
: years of culture to develop them, and they can learn
: them to a limited degree.
I would argue that language has been sufficiently complex for humans well before the species experienced its present technological boom. I'd also argue that since our ape cousins can only learn our language to a "limited degree", they must lack the intellectual capacity to master the terms and concepts a typical human can.
: If by some chance these apes
: had managed to be left alone for a long time, and the
: series of chance events which led humans to think up
: more complex languages occurred in them, THEY could
: have developed similarly complex languages. But just
: because they haven't, doesn't mean they couldn't. We
: haven't chanced to stumble onto the discovories which
: allow interstellar travel yet - but that doesn't mean
: we WON'T.
By "long time" do you mean 5 million years? If so, and we can wipe humans out of the picture, I agree with you whole-heartedly. ;) Hopefully it won't take our species 5 million years to figure out how to reach Alpha Centauri in a lifetime. ;)
: Two thousand years ago (why that figure, BTW?)...
Because the time of Christ (2000 +/- 500 years) marked the beginning of the first organized city-states in Europe, a certain kind of sociological benchmark on the way to nationhood, a level of human organization that seems to be required for rapid technological innovation. Relevance: I would credit the Romans with creating the civilizations in England, France, Italy and Germany that ultimately paved the way for a cultural renaissance. In addition, a number of technological advances were associated with the slow growth of the human population in Europe...
: ...a random
: electron struck a neuron in the brain of a random
: individual who's other neurons, due to genetic and
: environmental reasons, reacted in such a way that he
: had an idea, which he communicated to others, which
: spawned an explosion in technology that lets me sit
: here and type this to you right now. With so many
: people all thinking at the same time, it was bound to
: happen someday.
Neurons actually communicate via neurotransmitters, though waves of voltage help. :)
The great biologist E.O. Wilson was once approached by a Christian apologist, who asserted life cannot be generated by random processes, because it is so clearly ordered. Wilson, in defeating the poor apologist by pointing out that sea shells line up nicely on the beach due to the action of erratic wave action, did NOT make the argument that all outcomes are random, just that the processes giving rise to outcomes are always random. I just posted about this because it's a cool story, and it supports your random-cause argument above, Forrest. :)
That said, while we may love randomness, we shouldn't go overboard invoking it as a reason for everything. After all, we are still such children in this Universe. Fetuses, even. Maybe there are certain non-random process guiding us we don't yet understand...
-David
