(aka: The Standard Cognitive Model)
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Progressive Thinkers as of 5/8/2020
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Three Major controversies of Anthropology regarding the history of human development consist of 1) Brain size, 2) Bipedalism and 3) Language development.
An unorthodox view of looking at the development of the human brain is to suggest it was due to disease, anomalous mutation, or even due to a blow on the head which was viewed as a distinction that was viewed as a desirability so it was a requirement for membership in a clan, that is before genetics took the cue and its presence became a manifest biological event. And while I know these suggestions are speculative, we might as well add them to the list of considerations... at least to provide some indication to future researchers that we did not limit our imaginations only to those ideas considered reasonably viable according to mainstream academic bureaucracies, since it is well known that established institutions can be dead wrong about a given subject.
On the other hand, so-called conventional wisdom suggests a large brain arose due to some radiator theory, tool expansionism or other collectively organized group activity. While there are other considerations, I am hopeful the reader gets the idea when contrasted to the unconventional ideas, of which did not include some extra-terrestrial (including a "god") intervention.
The advent of Bipedalism in humans from what is believed to have been a quadrupedal (ape-like) gait, is generally thought of in terms of being able to see further in the terrain no longer afforded by the height of trees; a means by which items could be carried in both hands for longer distances, or some other characteristic defining some acquired advantage like showing off one's genitals... as a precursor to future ideas involving fertility, such as the development of fertility rites. Yet, unorthodoxly we could again say it was due to disease, mutation, or some other aberration which played a concomitant part in brain development. Take for example the idea that some clan of ape hippies began to practice the fad of bipedalism as an affront to the "Establishment" which preferred to maintain the tradition of quadripedalism. No doubt there was some balancing act that needed to practiced just as those who took up skateboarding on the campuses of U.S. universities in the 1960s. I remember the steel-wheeled, small-board contraptions weaving in and out of shortly distanced cups or rocks or what have you, like some teenager-styled version of hopscotch. As such, learning to walk on two legs as opposed to the "old-foggies" who insisted everyone should preserve the tradition of quadripedalism, was a task not without its recurring falls... just like many a learner wanting to ride a skateboard. As such, those who opted-in for the new fad of bipedalism, had to learn how not to fall on their head... a physical instrument which readily showed itself to be the main target for those losing their balance. Hence, along with bipedalism as a new fad for a younger generation, we had the accompanying spectacle of an enlarged head due to the many bumps on it. While conventional society called it a disfigurement, the "hipsters", the hippies, the Beatniks of the era, thought the bumps were cool, groovy, far out, and "bad"... thereby viewed as a positive physical accouterment which only the coolest people had... whereby wannabes from all walks of life would do whatever they could to have an enlarged (lumpy) head.
When we come to the debate of how language developed, one might well cite the conventional views that it was achieved as a discourse for teaching tool making and usage. In other words, increased social demands required some interactive communication over mere grunts, snarls, and other expressions again to infant babbling or animal regurgitations in which social interactions are simple and need no elaborations of communication except for some semblance of cooing, mooing, or oohing. However, it is sometimes the view of researchers to point out the need for an elaborated system of vocal utterance as a means of people interacting for the sake of cave art, funeral activities, as well as arts, crafts, song and dance... not to mention the development of rendering symbols for expressing that which a bearer may not have had a vocabulary form, and no doubt comprised an impetus for ideas found in early forms of present day subjects such as Astronomy (Astrology, Cosmology); Counting (Mathematics, Economics); Philosophy (early Anthropology, Physics); Doodling (Geometry... Building construction, land surveying); Herbalism (Medicine, Pharmacology); Trephination (Surgery, Psychology, Psychiatry, Counseling); etc...
Aside from a mere interest in Anthropology, since its topics venture into multiple research areas for investigating the above three issues; I like to delve deeper into the development of language with an interest not only in its pristine occurrence on the scene of humanity, but how humanity has viewed it with respect to different ideas of how it came about and when it did. One such perspective involves the interest of at least three former social leaders who wanted to know which language was the first to arrive on the scene of humanity by way of noting the expressions of infants. Here are three such accounts:
These following three examples of "1st language" ideas come from here: Buckland's Third Revolution Poster column 3, and is entitled "3 rulers are noted for carrying out experiments (by isolating children from all spoken language influences) to determine which language would be spoken first, and hence, identify the first language." (All three of the experiments might be referred to as a "deprivation" study.)
- Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus (664 - 610 B.C.)
- James IV of Scotland (A.D.1473 - 1513)
- Roman Emperor Fredrick II of Hohenstaufen (A.D. 1200's).
In contrast to this view let us make note of the following: 3-part emphasis by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: I believe that the process of thought might be carried on independent and apart from spoken or written language. I do not in the least doubt that if language had been denied or withheld from man, thought would have been a process 1) more simple, 2) more easy, and 3) more perfect than at present.
One must wonder whether or not humanity could have developed a superior form of thinking and communication if it had been deprived of vocal cords. What would have become of Mathematics with its heavy reliance on language and language-described dichotomies which might be suggested to be an after-effect of the bipedal gait?
It is important to note that early humans used the whatever-was-dominant mode of interpretation and expression to describe various ideas that may later have become divorced from their original upbringing, such as Astronomy linked with ideas about a god or gods. Whereas early observers and thinkers had keen vision, they unfortunately were encouraged to view everything in terms of some religious nonsense. And because wading through the nonsense can be such a laborious task, many people outright reject anything to do with religion... particularly when the earliest accounts are either lost or rendered in the language and symbols of an age where there are no speakers or knowledgeable people of a given ancient language. Present day attempts to interpret ancient texts, symbols and illustrations are simply guesses in many instances. Though some may in fact be accurate, we really don't have a means of verifying someone's guess work, labeled educated or otherwise.
Nonetheless, one might derive some tid-bit of information from a religious text (though it may have been translated and r-translated numerous of times with slight variations amounting to large revisions of the original). With respect to language, and more to the point the origin of language, the topic of language is mentioned in the Western Bible. However, one must use the lens of language or linguistics to view it and not the kaleidoscopic tube so often adopted by a religious dominant perception. Although to those readers who are keeping abreast of my writings I am repeating myself, to the new viewer the information herein is altogether new. Hence, let me reference the three-part inscription of:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with god, and the Word was a god
(John: 1:1
SCM_21)
It is too bad that the inscription (viewed from a language-study perspective and not a religious one), does not provide a date as to what is meant by the "Beginning". The term "word" is herein being interpreted to mean the advent of language. Perhaps some other religious text of some past era gives a closer approximation (or exactness), but I am not aware of it. Did someone in the past record when they heard the first word being spoken among their respective social group? And what gave a given utterance a distinctiveness to be viewed as being different for the typical non-word utterances? Was it something like the differences noted when we say someone is singing as opposed to just speaking? Is it repetition? Does a word have to have some gestural accompaniment? What was the first utterance that was considered the first word... if there was a single word and not multiple types among different groups and later became defined as a type of language for a group of people in a type of location which came to establish vocal repetitions from which arose a culture and then traditions otherwise noted as collectively practiced repetitions later used by social leaders (business, government, religion) as a means by which patriotism, morality, and normalcy are to be defined and expected to be participated in as an adopted reality and self-serving truth?
If adult language is an elaboration of infant babbling, it is no wonder that the numerically labeled utterance patterns seen in infancy can be seen in adulthood. The consonant/vowel dichotomy later arranged in a Boolean And, Or, Not gate way is a systemic recurrence among human mental patterning. We see it in early attempts at counting (1- 2- Many), in the Easternized dual yin/yang and then attempted triple I-Ching; and the Westernized dual-laden Mathematics with its attempted application to create a ternary/trinary computing system. The underlying mental standard of humanity linked to language, music, art and other symbology, appears to be exhibiting a Conservation of Number as a needed survival mechanism in response to an incrementally deteriorating environment whose effects are being rationalized away by the use of a time measurement creating the illusion of a vast distance if deluded ineffectualness.
When businesses, governments and religions can not distract populations to believe in their particularized illusions of exploitation, they resort to an attempted design of some greater calamity of possibility such as is described by the Apocalypse from religion, War from governments, and Economic upheaval from businesses. In short, each of them resort to some sort of variation that can be analogically linked to the three states of matter: (solid, liquid, gas), or three mass casualty implements of war: (atomic, chemical, biological (bacterial, viral, insects, vermin)), or three social inequities: (stock market/economics (wealth stratification) problem; population/sexuality/race problem; pollution (food/land, water/body-of-water, air) problem).
Language began, but we do not know for certain when or why. And though linguists have noted recurring patterns such as a recurring three-patterned word order, that one might in general, describe as Subject- Object- Verb (noted on page 23 in this SCM series.), it is of value to note that there is no standard cognitive treatment of human hearing being aligned with language. On the one hand we have a tradition of those interested in language looking for patterns, and yet incredulously overlook the recognizable value of hearing to speech. One need only look at the attempts of a deaf person to articulate to recognize the effect hearing has on speech production. Yet, it is not a standard cognitive pattern for those interested in language patterns to look at patterns associated with hearing, such as the structure of the ear. I continue to emphasize not only the need for this recognition but that we can conduct laboratory tests on the process of hearing through different constructions of the ear after highlighting its recurring patterns as indicated in the image below. And if you prefer not to acknowledge the recurring pattern-of-three, then seek out some other pattern more to your preference and alter its composition of form and functionality (via a mechanical engineering approach) to see what its effect(s) has/have on hearing... related to speech and thus quite possibly on thought... if not though processing.
However, why then do we speak of other patterns such as dualities and sevens if a pattern-of-three is dominant in the ear? Is something averting the affect and thus if it changes so does a portion of our ideas? For example, if the bipedal gait of humans for centuries has a presidential influence over thought construction as indicated by the presence of multiple dichotomies in Philosophy and Mathematics, then can there be other less obvious influences which may affect everyone or a few or a given group? While external observations such as star-gazing can play an influential role in ideological concepts such as in the case of imparting the number 7 seen in star groupings such as the Pleiades (seven sisters) and the Big Dipper onto religious-defined activities, and the ten fingers and/or toes on what may be presumed to have been an influence for using a 10-base system of mathematics... though others existed. Yet long before the usage of a base-anything system was the advent of counting. Let me provide an excerpt from the Britannica which illustrates the present topic of enumeration being discussed:
When it became necessary to count frequently to numbers larger than 10 or so, the numeration had to be systematized and simplified; this was commonly done through use of a group unit or base, just as might be done today counting 43 eggs as three dozen and seven. In fact, the earliest numerals of which there is a definite record were simple straight marks for the small numbers with some special form for 10. These symbols appeared in Egypt as early as 3400 BC and in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC, long preceding the first known inscriptions containing numerals in China (c. 1600 BC), Crete (c. 1200 BC), and India (c. 300 BC). Some ancient symbols for 1 and 10 are given in the figure.
The special position occupied by 10 stems from the number of human fingers, of course, and it is still evident in modern usage not only in the logical structure of the decimal number system but in the English names for the numbers. Thus, eleven comes from Old English endleofan, literally meaning "[ten and] one left [over]," and twelve from twelf, meaning "two left"; the endings -teen and -ty both refer to ten, and hundred comes originally from a pre-Greek term meaning "ten times [ten]."
It should not be inferred, however, that 10 is either the only possible base or the only one actually used. The pair system, in which the counting goes "one, two, two and one, two twos, two and two and one," and so on, is found among the ethnologically oldest tribes of Australia, in many Papuan languages of the Torres Strait and the adjacent coast of New Guinea, among some African Pygmies, and in various South American tribes. The indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego and the South American continent use number systems with bases three and four. The quinary scale, or number system with base five, is very old, but in pure form it seems to be used at present only by speakers of Saraveca, a South American Arawakan language; elsewhere it is combined with the decimal or the vigesimal system, where the base is 20. Similarly, the pure base six scale seems to occur only sparsely in northwest Africa and is otherwise combined with the duodecimal, or base 12, system.
In the course of history, the decimal system finally overshadowed all others. Nevertheless, there are still many vestiges of other systems, chiefly in commercial and domestic units, where change always meets the resistance of tradition. Thus, 12 occurs as the number of inches in a foot, months in a year, ounces in a pound (troy weight or apothecaries' weight), and twice 12 hours in a day, and both the dozen and the gross measure by twelves. In English the base 20 occurs chiefly in the score ("Four score and seven years ago…"); in French it survives in the word quatre-vingts ("four twenties"), for 80; other traces are found in ancient Celtic, Gaelic, Danish, and Welsh. The base 60 still occurs in measurement of time and angles.
Source and credit: David Eugene Smith and William Judson LeVeque, "numerals and numeral systems." Encyclopædia Britannica.
As "sacred" as the number 7 is described as, we have no account of it being used as a number base. Nor do we have the number 3 or number 2, etc... Whereas we have 5, 10, 12, 20 and 60 as especialized reference numbers used for mathematics; these same numbers are not necessarily the dominant ones referenced as favorite names nor used in multiple different contexts of itemization and speech patterning of ideas. Nature does not appear to favor them in greater proportion than other numbers such as two and three... though we have a small 7- color visual spectrum and (octet) 8- rule in chemistry. As Mark Mahin has pointed out and I have referenced numerous times (as well as adding to his initial list), it appears that Nature loves the number three:
Since Mathematics can be seen to have an undeniable preference of using dichotomies just as there is a system of Persistent Dichotomies in Psychology, one might be inclined to see the necessity of using a base that could be (dichotomously) paired, such as when pairing the five fingers of one hand to the five fingers of another hand to obtain a base 10, and yet at the same time exclude the same count related to the toes. Yet this idea doesn't provide a readily visible physical feature for explaining the use of the 12 and 60 systems, while the use of twenty can be viewed in terms of counting fingers and toes. Nonetheless, the base systems appear to reflect an underlying attachment with a basic formula of duality, if one would care to go in that direction of consideration. With respect to the hand, the middle finger, because of its length (and perhaps usage by some as an expression of sexually-linked vulgarity), appears to separate (modify and define) the hand into two fingers to either side of it, though the first three fingers (technically... thumb and two fingers) is used for holding a pen or pencil (if not small paint brush). In any case, the use of obvious body parts as an influencer of a recurring cognitive pattern may not suffice as a definitive source of explanation we can rely on.
Though we think that language is adequately (accurately) paired with number-quantity as opposed to number quality (described either by calligraphy or artistic writing practice), we must question how much of our thought concerning enumeration might be influenced, since we can use multiple words to define a quantity that is then subjected to an alternative quality. For example:
- 1, 1st, one, I, singularity, single, once
- 2, 2nd, two, II, duality, double, twice
- 3, 3rd, three, III, triplicity, triple, thrice
- 4, 4th, four, IV, quadruplicity?, quadruple, forth
- 5, 5th, five, V, quinticity?, quintuple, fifth
- 6, 6th, six, VI, hexsexdicity?, sextuple, sixth
- 7, 7th, seven, VII, septet-icity? septuple, seventh
- 8, 8th, eight, VIII, octad-icity? octuple?, eighth
- 9, 9th, nine, IX, nine-icity? nineuple?, ninth
- 10, 10th, ten, X, decadicity?, decauple?, tenth
- 11, 11th, eleven, XI, elvenicity?, elevenuple?, eleventh
- 12, 12th, twelve, XII, dozen-icity?, dozenuple? twelfth
- etc...
- Notice that the first three numbers end with st, nd, rd... (1st, 2nd, 3rd), and "ce" in once, twice, thrice... but thereafter we see a repetition of th.
- We run into a problem after the number 3 using "ty" ending (singularity, duality, triplicity), though the use of the ending may be used in some contexts.
- After "septuple" in 7, we do not find a repeated use of "le", though the reader may know of such occurrences in some contexts.
- (Binary suffixes are apparent.)
While to some readers it may appear that I have taken the discussion from the opening topic regarding three major controversies in Anthropology, the above inclusions have an attachment to one or another of the listings, to which I may use the metaphor that there is a representative cadence of thought akin to a bipedal gait. And yet, if one were born to fiy instead of walk and run, would a paired wing set also influence a cognitive orientation towards duality, a duality that in different references suggests a developmental trend towards a triplicity such as in the case of two germ layers to three germ layers, or the yin/yang duality becoming part of an I-Ching idea involving what some claim to be as triads but I see and have said reference embellished dyads (biads).
How does humanity progress into an actual three-patterned perspective if it routinely finds itself contrasting the topic of threes with those of twos as a part of a developmental sequence which appears to be a cognitive standard referencing a repetition brought about as a survival mechanism in response to an incrementally deteriorating environment which enforces the use of a Conservation of Number that different subjects embellish in order to provide the illusion of a developmental gain and not merely an elaboration of basic skills or abilities such as an electronic phone to amplify, record and allow for conversations at greater distances that a loud voice, large lungs and articulate vocabulary can not compete with. The same goes for the usage of artificial daylight called lightbulbs, and multiple food stuffs grown in divergent climates one may be far removed from. Indeed, how many would survive if required to live off the land, the sea, the air in the environment to which they inhabit? Or how about the death rate if the practice of medicine and hygiene were never implemented on a large scale? Imagine if the entire population were thrust back into a history where there were no buildings, no tools, and no clothing... as well as no established animal husbandry, agriculture, pharmacology or sewage facilities. Then again, what if all the world's language disappeared and there was not but grunts, whoops, and screeches?
Date of (series) Origination: Saturday, 14th March 2020... 6:11 AM
Date of Initial Posting (this ): 1st March 2022... 6:04 AM
Updated Posting:Saturday, 12th November 2022... 8:55 AM, AST (Arizona Standard Time); Marana, AZ.