Gee that really makes me feel better! Wait a second am I getting confused Fat Tom can say there is a state where nothing exists and therefore there is a state where something always exists? Or was that a M. Night movie?

I wasn’t saying it to be critical, its just one theory as to why men are incapable of verbal communication on the same level as women. Its one theory. They simply did not use it in the same manner that women did because for males and the role they were fulfilling, a lot of chatter would have been detrimental. Women were left alone with one another and also with babies very often so essentially they would develop language.

Ok Chomsky I was kidding.

I’m sure men can chuck spears or something very effectively.

Read, Real Boys, by Pollack

Feel free to summarize.

Child rearing practices of Modern Society is geared to separate men from their emotions.

Well I guess thats another thread alltogether.

Yes now back to Fat Tom, is there a contradiction in his argument.

Are you going to make little faces then? Speak up.

Funniest thing I've heard/read all day.

I’m just going to see how many men I can infuriate today. Yet the other point I brought up was serious. There are several theories as to the origination of speech in humans. Men generally went on long hunting excursions which could sometimes last for weeks or into months. Very often they were killed, joined other tribes or simply never returned. While hunting, speech would have not been something that was necessary. In fact it would have been detrimental. Males would have found non verbal communication and physical gesturing better suited to hunting so as to not frighten off game.

In contrast females (who were responsible for the bulk of the food collection through hunting and gathering) would have been left together in social groups. They would have also been caring for infants. It is a likely assumption to be reached that women were much more vocal. They chatted amongst one another and they talked to babies.

Bushi,
I’m so happy you posted this. In another post you mentioned this one, but I was unable to locate it. THANKS for re-visiting these ideas – fabulous.

I’m a fieri kind of thinker. It may be that my limited scientific understanding and awareness makes my theories somewhat more simplified. I agree with the concept that ‘energy’ is about as eternal a thing that has ‘become’ part of our knowledge. How I came to be in the fieri camp has to do with energy on a very basic level.

I conceive energy as constantly in motion; in flux. Whatever we perceive to be inclusive of the attributes, or should I say properties, of energy must also include its inability to stagnate of its own accord. The nature of energy is to “become” and relent persistently. To me, this is how the entire universe has evolved, as interdependent units of all that energy ‘becomes’. For this reason I can actually relate to how pantheists envision the universe.

The universe, therefore, has been ‘created’ in the sense that what we understand of its more visible components have limited existence. However, that may be an illusory perception. A more accurate view, in terms of energy, or in fieri, is that no matter how ‘stagnant’ a physical object me seem, it is changing, it is in flux, it is becoming what it will be when it relents back to energy and becomes yet another interdependent part of whatever universe energy itself has evolved.

This can be a very disturbing concept to those who cannot imagine our shape, form, thoughts, knowledge and personality, as nothing more than what we are at the present moment. Those people look at this concept through an egotistical and self-preserving bias that concludes it could not be an accurate concept. So there is a box with a label to be assigned to it.

To me, those who have broken out of that box, accept that we are in the process of ‘becoming’ and what more can we do about it, but take advantage of all there is to be experienced and known about this particular moment. We must take responsibility for our actions, so they don’t hinder others from breaking out of the box and experiencing the full spectrum of the process we have been thrust into; becoming whatever is necessary to the emergent universe.

Last spring I took a refresher course in Biological Anthropology: An Evolutionary Perspective. In that course the instructor presented both points of view.

The one argument is that the men would need to develop language to coordinate hunting.

The other argument is that the women would need to develop language when gathering herbs, etc.

Personally I think it's kind of silly to try to attribute the development of language to either gender. Clearly language would have developed in a species as a whole. I don't see where gender would play a major role.

I'm also not sold on the idea that specific activities were necessarily the driving force behind communication. I don't necessarily buy into the idea that evolution needs to always be 'driven'. I think in some cases it just arises simply because it's possible.

A good example is the Neanderthal. We (the Cro-Magnon) had developed the ability to communicate with each other. But the Neanderthal did not.

The evidence for this is in the fact that our ancestors apparently taught their offspring with purposeful tutelage. But the Neanderthal did not. They way that this can be seen is that the tolls of the Cro-Magnon devolved at a much faster pace. Whilst the tools of the Neanderthal remained fairly stagnant. It is believed that they Neanderthal only learned from each other in a 'monkey see monkey do' type of way, whilst we actually were able to teach and learn from one another.

In fact, it is believe that we murdered all of the Neanderthal precisely because we could organize raids and attack them purposefully as a group. While the Neanderthal lacked a social connection and thus responded more on an individual basis of every Neanderthal for himself.

Another interesting thing I've heard was from course I took more recently on the History of Mathematics. In that course the lecturer suggested that language may have sprung entirely from our need to communicate the idea of number (or quantity). Some of the earliest writings were actually representations of quantities.

In fact, the playing dice that we still use today were found to have been used as early as 30,000 B.C.E. In fact there was no symbol for the concept of number at that time, thus the reasons for the dot patterns that we see on the dice. It is believed that in their earliest form dice were not used to generate random numbers as used in games today, but instead were a tool of the earliest mathematicians for performing arithmetic and keeping track of quantities.

So the need to convey the idea of number may well have been the motivation that began the art of written language using symbols.

I still marvel at our ability to read and write with such ease. So many words, and so many concepts, and we just take them all in like there's nothing to it.

Really? How do you figure that? Generally when people go hunting, they want to be as quiet as possible. I could be wrong but that is a natural assumption to make. I could ask some hunters. I just imagine a bunch of loud ass men schlepping through the woods and it simply wouldn’t be conducive to a successful hunt.



That is an over simplification of the argument. It’s not really an argument. It is a conclusion. Women were often left in small social groups. It is natural to assume that speech would have been likely to develop under these circumstances. It was not simply that they were "collecting herbs" together but that they were naming herbs together and identifying what plants might be poisonous and what plants would induce an abortion. They were keeping track of these plants, where they grew, what their various uses would be. Also women were responsible for about 80% of the clan’s food supply. If the men brought back some form of protein, wonderful, but how often did that happen do you think honestly? They were always getting killed or wandering off and joining other tribes.



I don’t.



That’s not clear at all. In fact the opposite conclusion is far more likely.



Really? I am. I would certainly feel it to be a more logical conclusion to reach. What do even modern humans today do when they hold a baby? Think that over a bit.



Or that a need arises that necessitates it.



We (meaning you and I) are not Cro-Magnon. We are Homo sapiens. Cromagnum or Cro-Magnon, are the ancestral prototype of modern human beings from the dawn of human history. A representative of Homo sapiens, they existed from about 35,000 to 10,000 years ago in Western and Southern Europe in the last Ice Age and displaced the Neanderthals who were driven into extinction. The physical attributes of the Cromagnum are anatomically almost identical to modern man, being tall, with an upright posture and a slightly more robust physiology on average than most modern-day humans.

It’s close but not quite there yet. They were even still physiologically different in certain respects. Probably more bulky, larger chest cavity, sunken eyes. These were considered the prototypes for Homo sapiens.



That’s not exactly accurate either. The idea that Neanderthals lacked complex language was widespread, despite concerns about the accuracy of reconstructions of the Neanderthal vocal tract, until 1983, when a Neanderthal hyoid bone was found at the Kebara Cave in Israel. The hyoid is a small bone which connects the musculature of the tongue and the larynx, and by bracing these structures against each other, allows a wider range of tongue and laryngeal movements than would otherwise be possible. The presence of this bone implies that speech was anatomically possible. The bone which was found is virtually identical to that of modern humans



That is true and I agree. It's also thought that Neanderthal lacked the ability to think in abstract terms in quite the same manner in which Cro-Magnon was capable. Neanderthal was probably very in the moment much like a chimpanzee where as Cro-Magnon and eventually Homo sapien had the ability to remember and to project thought in a manner that was imaginative. This would have caused Neanderthal to fall prey to Cro-Magnum also.



Hmm interesting. I bet women very often had to account for herbs, where medicines grew and how abundant they were. Also since women were responsible for most of the food collection for the clan, they would have needed to quantify food stores. In addition to this the concerns for infant safety and where they were at all moments (just as parents need to now)



I agree with you here also. There is a tribe in Africa (I can’t recall their name) but they speak entirely in clicks and whistles and it sounds nothing like what we interpret as modern language. Amazing. It boggles the mind truly.

Genes pass to siblings male and female. If language increase survivability regardless of where that advantage comes from, it would be selected against and passed down to male and female.

Genetics is really just hardware. I think the underrated aspect of the human experience is the software and how social context plays a role in developing that software. I can imagine different hormones playing there roles, if it works use it, we specialize in every other way . . . I see no reason to not believe all of these ideas could be true in one regard or another and to differing degrees.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that evolution does not occur on the individual level, its based on populations.

I’m sorry that your thread was hijacked. It’s not really a big debate here. You can go back to the original subject matter. This is ALL theory. There is no way to know any of this for certain.

I would rather think there could be, but we have yet to discover it.

"Krimsa" men and women communicate on the same level depending on the conversation or the need to conversate

go shopping with a woman and she will talk your ear off about color combinations ..heck I didn't even know that birch was a color ..I thought it was only a Tree ...but the woman will usually talk while the guy only keeps repeating in intervals "when are we going to get the hell out the store"

Go to a house full of guys with a sporting event and they will talk about everything from players stats to which type of shaving cream the player uses...some guys will even talk to theirselves if they watch a sporting event alone while a woman will just repeat in intervals can I turn it on "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood"

Talk about Love and the woman will talk and the guy will listen...talk about sex and the guy will talk and the woman will listen

talking as in commuincation is on a need to do basic