0039 Intersections are inherently mysterious.

0040 Newson and Richerson are scientists, so their big picture tries to get around the mystery of two actualities constituting a single actuality.  One of the tricks is the hidden ingredient.  Another trick is to replace the content-level hylomorphe, DNA [codes for] body_2a, with a single word, “gene“_2a.

0041 Two novel definitions allow me to further describe their approach.

A “phenotype” is the situation-level potential_1b virtually situating the content-level potential_1a.

An “adaptation” is the perspective-level actuality_2c virtually contextualizing the situation-level actuality_2b.  The situation-level actuality_2b ranges from social interaction [stimulates] hormone response_2b to culture [informs] brain_2b.

0042 Now, the theoretical construct as a three-level interscope looks like the following.

0043 So, an “adaptation” is a perspective-level actuality_2a (arising from the potential of reproductive success_1ccontextualizing an instance, ranging from social interaction [stimulates] hormonal response_2b to culture [informs] brain_2b.  Here, the “adaptation” includes the ways_2c that mother-infant interaction [stimulates] hormones_2b increases reproductive success_1c.

Here, a “phenotype” is emotional attachment_1b virtually emerging from (and situating) an innate_2a function_1a.

0044 Consequently, the terms, “adaptation” and “phenotype” are no longer independent actualities, as noted in the previous blog.  Instead, they are labels for two category-crossing pairs, one for actuality and one for potential.

For “adaptation”, sociality_3b, reproductive success_1c and natural selection_3c are bound.  The perspective-level actuality_2carises from reproductive success_1c, a necessary, but not sufficient cause.  The situation-level actuality_2b is a hylomorphe, ranging from social interactions [stimulate] hormones to culture [informs] brains.

For “phenotype”, body development_3a, genes_2a, function versus plasticity_1a and ‘something’ social_1b are bound.  ‘Something’ social_1b can support social interactions_2b or culture_2b.  The brain and body_3a will innately display either functionality or plasticity or some combination of the two_1a.

0046 Here is the picture for mother-infant bonding, which displays function as the content-level potential.

0047 Chapter two discusses the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees.

Newson and Richerson discuss some ways that social interactions may grade into (what scientists might call) culture.

0048 The first concerns vocalizations.  Yes, vocalizations may be social interactions.  Or, they may be the product of social interactions.  A great ape may want to engage in some interactions and avoid other interactions.  These intentions are physically on display when an ape takes the initiative to do something.  Something may include vocalizations, but action is everything.  Actions are signs of intention.

Newson and Richerson mention vocalizations because (somehow) these creatures have to end up speaking, like we do today.  They cannot imagine an alternate pathway, such as the one described in Razie Mah’s e-masterworks, The Human Niche and An Archaeology of the Fall, along with commentaries grouped in the series, Buttressing the Human Niche and Reverberations of the Fall.

0049 The second is group living.  In group living, social interactions abound.

0050 The third consists in compromises that accompany group living: hierarchy and alliances

0051 The fourth is grooming, which sustains alliances and fits well into the hormone-release concept of social interaction.

0052 Here, genes_2a grant an established hormone-triggering system a degree of plasticity_1a.  Hormones_2b are relaxing and promote emotional alliances_1b.

0053 The fifth is culture, which consists in non-genetic inheritance, typically passed from mother to offspring.  Here, culture includes how to interact while grooming, as well as how to look for and acquire food.  The habits satisfy needs.  At the same time, habits [of satisfying] needs_2b reflect the essence of the hylomorphe, culture [informs] brains_2b.  

The “adaptation” concerns paying attention to what others are doing_2c when others are engaged in habitual activities [that satisfy] needs (such as finding food)_2b.  The “phenotype” relies on the potential of neural plasticity_1a in order to support the potential of attributing intention_1b.

0054 Chapter three discusses apes that walk upright.  The authors present a snapshot from three millions years ago.

In the previous blog, three examples provided case studies of the way that the situation-level actuality_2b (characterizing the “adaptation”) coordinates with the content-level potential_1a (characterizing the “phenotype”).  Mother-infant interactions [stimulate] hormones_2b coordinates with the potential of innate functions_1a.  Primate grooming_2b is mixed_1a.  Habits for foraging, signaling and so on_2b favors plasticity_1a.

0055 Newson and Richerson do not express the logic of their argument as explicitly as portrayed in this examination. Perhaps, they may demand a few adjustments to my exercise.  That is fair.

At the same time, one can take my assessments much further.

The authors’ approach opens up to a dichotomy that is expressed very early in the philosophy in the West, and much earlier in the unfolding of our current Lebenswelt.

Two situation-level actualities may be explicitly abstracted using the labels, “body” and “mind”.

0056 This dichotomy is built over generations into our genus through implicit abstraction,

The body responds to signals.

The mind responds to signs.

0057 How does this complementarity come to be?

Three million years ago, so-called “southern apes” walk between widely separated areas of rich resources in an environment of mixed forest and savannah.  Australopithecines walk upright.  The foot becomes enslaved for walking.  The hand is freed for other tasks.  

The authors offer a drawing of a pot-bellied ape with relatively long arms and short legs. As the tropical forests retreated due to the cooler climate of the Pleistocene, these little troopers start to walk from place to place.

0058 They face a host of challenges.

0059 They must avoid or confront predators.  Ah, put a stick in the little fellow’s hand!  Or maybe a rock.  The other hand will carry an infant or some food.  Well, maybe the males carry the clubs and the females carry the infants.

An ancient social habit, where one large male rules over a harem of females, begins to break down, because no single male can carry a stick and a baby at the same time.  More males are needed to carry the sticks.  And the rocks.  And whatever else the females do not want to carry.

Is this starting to sound vaguely familiar?

0060 Newson and Richerson focuses on one team, mothers helping others in organizing infant care.  The authors pay lip service for some other teams, such as males foraging and occasionally fighting off enemies (hyenas and baboons) on the periphery of the camp.

0061 It is here, in the recognition of the importance of the team, where Razie Mah’s masterwork, The Human Niche, begins to shine.  Teams constitute cultures outside of the mother-infant dyad.  It is as if the mother-infant dyad is generalized, so that belonging to a team, cooperating, taking risks, sharing situational awareness, suffering losses and gaining benefits becomes… well… familiar.  Culture [informs] brains_2b builds off the foundations of social interactions [stimulate] hormonal responses_2b.  Minds_2b and bodies_2b co-evolve.

0062 Plus, the build-out extends signaling into sign-processing.  Signaling is the stuff of dyadic stimulus-response.  Sign-processing is the stuff of triadic relations, where a sign-vehicle stands for a sign-object in regards to a sign-interpretant.

In the first chapter, the authors state that culture is information and information is shared.  To me, they do not go on to develop that statement where signaling (which is the information of cause and effect) extends into sign-processing (where information may be regarded as sign-vehicles that can key into sign-objects due to innate (genes) or learned (cultural) sign-interpretants).

0063 Why do the authors not develop the extension of signals into sign-processing?

Here is an example that follows the presentation in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, available as smashwords and other e-book venues.

The dyadic nature of the social interaction of the mother-infant dyad can be depicted as content and situation levels of a two-level interscope.  Two-level interscopes are characteristic of sensible construction.  Note that the actualities₂ imply, but do not demand, awareness of the respective normal contexts₃ and potentials₁.

0064 The triadic nature of social interaction within a team can be depicted using the same sensible construction.  But now, the interactions consist of individuals gesturing to one another and responding to the moment with the intent of attaining a goal.  Two-level interscopes are characteristic of sensible construction.  Note that the actualities₂ imply, and to some extent, demand, awareness of the respective normal contexts₃ and potentials₁.

But, what does the word, “awareness”, really mean?

0065 Team activities entail sign-processing.  Acheulean stone tools serve as archaeological evidence of a team activity that lasts for generations.  These tools remain the same for hundreds of thousands of years, but the associated sign-processing abilities continually improve.  Why?  Improved sign-processing increases reproductive success.

0066 Even though the authors emphasize the importance of culture, Newson and Richerson miss the concept that the human niche includes the potential of signs.  Sign-relations are actualities independent of the adapting species.

The following two-level interscope appears in general form in point 0035.

The following two-level interscope applies to evolution that begins around three million years ago.

0067 In order to explain the evolution of talk, the authors mention how the voice could be employed for signaling.  They argue as if the only way to talk is by using the voice.  They ignore recent linguistic studies on sign languages.  They do not notice that the hand is already under voluntary neural control and voluntary neural control is required to talk.

0068 The authors also note that, by three million years ago, the crania of the southern apes are already enlarging.  Larger brains assist sign processing.

0069 Other changes to include in this period include the loss of hair.  Perhaps, the loss is related to climatic conditions.

Finally, the authors go into detail about what biologists observe when animals are domesticated.  For example, the fox and the boar have been domesticated.  In the process, these creatures change appearance and temperament in a holistic manner.

What does domestication mean?

What does it mean to join team human?

0070 Here is a key distinction that develops as early as three million years ago.

These situation-level actualities fit into a three-level interscope that (more or less) depicts the relational character of the author’s theoretical approach.

0071 For gene-culture co-evolution, genes_2a associate with “phenotype” and culture_2b associates to “adaptation”.  “Adaptation” and “phenotype” are big category-crossing words.

0072 The transition from (one branch of the) southern apes to the Homo genus occurs by 1.5Myr (million of years ago).  This time serves as the snapshot for chapter four, concerning early humans.

0073 Clearly, the authors are worried about how we gain voluntary control of our vocal apparatus in order to speak.  They do not imagine that the stage is set for the routinization of manual-brachial gestures during team activities.

Why is routinization so important?

As the gestures of hand talk become more distinct from one another, they start to form a system of differences.  According to Ferdinand de Saussure, language consists in two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (speech) and langue(processed sign-objects).  The relation is arbitrary for speech, but not for hand talk.  Hand talk pictures and points to its referents.

In short, language evolves in the milieu of hand talk, not speech talk.

0074 But, everyone speaks today.  So what gives?

Well, the answer to that comes much, much later.

0075 Instead of really confronting how language could have evolved, the authors assume that all languages are spoken.  So, they tell a story about the mouth.

In order to get linguistic speech, the mouth and throat must come under voluntary neural control.

The story is about a mother chewing food and spitting it into the mouth of her weaning child.  Certainly, that cultural behavior encourages adaptation towards voluntary neural control of the mouth and throat.  But, where does a need for a functional vocabulary come into play?

0076 In the same story, the authors discuss Acheulean stone tools (mentioned earlier in point 0065) and imagine a whole team of hominins joining to appear as a single very large animal in order to approach and scavenge a carcass.  Now, that is teamwork!  Manual-brachial gestures are crucial for this type of job.  The more readily that each specific gesture is interpreted, the better off everyone is.

0077 Here is a two-level interscope that fits this portion of the story.

0078 The Acheulean stone tool_3a is a sign-vehicle.  The sign-object is the dyad, stone tool [conveys] intention_2b.  The Acheulean stone tool is like a big tooth, capable of slicing meat off carcasses and crushing the bones to get the fatty marrow.  In hand talk, I can picture or point to the stone tool, but I cannot picture or point to the sign-object, even though I know that stone tool [conveys] intention.  All the participants have the sign-object in mind, but no one can talk about that in hand talk.  Even more important, each participant holds a similar normal context_3b, where the team activity of scavenging is significant_3b, and potential_1b, where working together must occur in order to accomplish the task_1b.

Manual-brachial gestures_2b are the way that hominins talk in team activities_2c.  Once gestures are routinized, symbolic processing characteristic of grammar may evolve.

0079 Hand talk does not allow the participants to “name” the sign-object and sign-interpretant.  Hand talk images and indicates a sign-vehicle.  Everyone recognizes the sign-vehicle, then implicitly abstracts a sign-object (that cannot be pictured or pointed to).  That implicit abstraction is the sign-interpretant.

The Homo genus gets better and better at scavenging and hunting.

The Homo genus gets better and better at reading signs.

0080 Between 1.5Myr and 200kyr (thousands of years ago), the Homo genus adapts to more and more proximate niches.  Imagine the signs offered by both nature and an increasingly wide repertoire of team activities.  Each constellation of signs pulls hominins towards adaptations involving both body and mind.  The body responds to signals.  The mind responds to signs.

Newson and Richerson discuss the Turkana boy, who undoubtedly displays promise before he gets trapped in circumstances that, over the following millennia, would allow his body to decay undisturbed and his bones to turn into stone.  Then, there is the fossilized skull of a male who had lost his teeth, found in the Caucasian Mountains and dating to 1.8Myr.

0081 What do these fossilized bones tell archaeologists?

Hominins are developing larger brains.

The Homo genus has a diet that is not the same as the australopithecines.  Perhaps, the new diet involves novel methods of food preparation, long before the domestication of fire.

Hominins domesticate fire long before the oldest hearths yet found, dating between 400 and 300kyr.  This period corresponds to around the time when the Neanderthal and the Denisovan lineages separates from (what is to become) the Sapiens.

0082 The domestication of fire, what an achievement.

The same style of Acheulean stone tool lasts for over a million years, then starts to change around the time when fire is domesticated.

0083 For thousands of years, fire has been considered elemental.

Mythologically, I could say that the Acheulean stone tools show that the hominins had tamed the element of earth.  The use of gourds to carry water tamed that element.  The use of manual-brachial gesture in hand talk domesticated the air. So, fire is the last element to be domesticated.

Oh! The Chinese civilization has one more element.  Metal!  That element belongs to our current Lebenswelt.   Earth, water, air and fire belong to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Yet, our hand-talking ancestors could not label these elements as explicit abstractions, distinct from one another.  What is there to picture or point to?  Instead, these elements enter into implicit abstractions, as sign-vehicles that come into relation with sign-objects according to sign-interpretants held in body and in mind.

0084 After the domestication of fire, the pace of hominin innovation slowly increases.  The authors do not envision the possibility that the domestication of fire not only allows cooking (which increases the calories available from wild food), but permits talk to become… how to say it?.. a team activity, of sorts.  Yes, our ancestors shoot the breeze with hand talk around the fire after a meal.

Hand talk is no longer confined to task-oriented team activities.  A general vocabulary and grammar starts to evolve.

Our lineage loves to talk.  It is a wonderful as picking bugs off of one another.

0085 Before the first members of Homo sapiens appear, maybe around 200kyr, hominins talk with their hands.  The Neaderthals and the Denisovans probably practice fully linguistic hand talk.

Yes, before the appearance of humans, all hominins talk with their hands.  So, most stories are vaudevillian.  Hominins learn to laugh like never before.  Also, our ancestors begin to use their vocal tracts in precise ways, like a musical accompaniment to linguistic hand talk.  We learn to sing.  In community and mega-band and tribal gatherings, we synchronize ourselves through song.  In doing so, the vocal tract comes under voluntary neural control.  The larynx descends to accommodate a wider range of formant frequencies and then…

… with the evolution of Homo sapiens, speech is added to hand talk.

Hand-speech talks lasts for almost 200,000 years.

0086 Chapter five starts with a snapshot of 100kyr (one hundred thousand years ago).  Anatomically modern humans have been around say, since 200kyr.

0087 The authors face a difficulty.

Surely, the fossilized skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans suggest that they are identical to us.  At the same time, the cultural continuity between say, 300 to 80kyr is remarkable.  So, anatomically modern humans enter into the world and survive for thousands and thousands of years with no rapid cultural innovations.

0088 What are they doing with their enormous brains?

Apparently out of options, the authors suggest that our energy-consuming brains are an advantage when the climate dramatically changes.  The climate of the Pleistocene is like a roller coaster.  So, the suggestion is plausible.

Or, perhaps, since most adaptations at this time are cultural, cultural adaptations demand enormous brains.  Other adaptations to proximate niches are in play as well.  For example, small differences in the ability to protect oneself from the sun (with melanin) or from the lack of sun (with no melanin to encourage vitamin D synthesis, which requires sunlight) turn into significant selectors in terms of reproductive success.  

0089 Thus I arrive at the third version of the author’s big picture.

0090 A “cultural adaptation” is a perspective-level behavior or trait_2c that influences reproductive success_1c virtually contextualizing the situation-level actuality of culture [informs] brains_2b.  Our large brains are being put to use.

A “phenotype” is a situation-level potential_1b, underlying both a cultural trait and its neural substrate_2b, virtually emerging from (and situating) neural (or brain) plasticity_1a.  

Brain plasticity_1a favors certain potentials_1b over others_1b.  For example, humans tend to recall stories containing one notable unusual event.  If there are no unusual events, the story is readily forgotten (as one expects from sensible thinking).  If there are too many unusual events, the story is hard to remember (as one expects from overtaxation of sign-processing).

0091 In one of the interludes, the authors depict a person, using speech-alone talk, rather than hand-speech talk, labeling a situation, “evil”.   Surely, the same person could have expressed such an impression without using the spoken word, “evil”.

How about a grimace?

Hand-talk the offender’s name then grimace, with exaggeration.

How does one picture or point to a situation using hand-speech talk?

One cannot.  One can only image and indicate a sign-vehicle within the situation.  Then, the others must make the connection between that gestural-word and the nasty face.  The unhappy family member juxtaposes two signs, gestural-word and grimace.  What does that imply?

Everyone, to some extent, must guess.

0092 Is that not the nature of sign-processing?  Given a sign-vehicle, say a really sharp rock fashioned to the end of a long wooden shaft, one must guess the sign-object.  So, having a well routinized sign-interpretant makes good sense.  No one wants to end up on the wrong end of that stick.

0093 To me, the fact that the authors do not recognize that the human niche entails sign processing sets the stage for a lot of hand-waving as the story about human evolution comes closer and closer to our current Lebenswelt.

0094 The human niche includes the potential of sign-relations.

Signs are triadic relations.

So, what does that say about the human niche?

If the authors had only encountered the hypothesis proclaimed in Razie Mah’s e-book, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), then they really could have worked their imaginations.

So many stories can be told.

0095 How does Razie Mah’s e-book, The Human Niche, differ from Newson and Richerson’s treatment of the Paleolithic, stretching (say) from 100,000 to 20,000 years ago.

0096 First, humans have enormous, energy-demanding brains.  What are people using their brains for?

Are they responding to the frequent and dramatic climate changes during the late Pleistocene?  Or, are they using their brains to explore the semiotic opportunities available to hand-speech talk?  One language tradition contains two fully linguistic modes of expression.  Plus, each mode of expression offers very different semiotic opportunities.

Initially, speech adorns hand-talk.  What an adornment it is.  Humans chatter like birds compared to other hominins of the Middle Paleolithic.  Plus, adornment adds to every team tradition.  Artistic artifacts appear more and more often in the archaeological record.

0097 Second, what types of abstraction are humans conducting with their hand-speech talk?

They are developing styles of implicit abstraction.  The judgments of implicit abstraction are built into our bodies, our “phenotype”, due to our “adaptations”.  One beauty of the way that the authors conflate “adaptation” and “phenotype” into one three-level interscope is that the situation-level actuality_2b, a secondness₂ within secondness_b, corresponds to the hylomorphes, body [and] mind_2b, culture [informs] brains_2b and social interactions [stimulate] hormone responses_2b.  These all speak to implicit, rather than explicit, abstraction.  These hylomorphes are diverse and innate.

0098 So, when do we (humans) start performing explicit abstraction?

Or, is explicit abstraction an unintended consequence of an event where something went wrong?

More on that, later.

0099 Third, humans grow up to fit into a family.  In this, Razie Mah and the authors agree.  However, Newson and Richerson do not develop the themes of other social circles, such as intimate friends, teams (where linguistic hand talk first evolves), bands (today’s parties, bars and workplaces), communities (today’s neighborhoods, churches, and clubs), mega-bands (today’s sport bars, festivals and county fairs) and tribes (today’s political rallies and feast-day celebrations).  All these entail sign-processing and yield implicit abstractions, an exemplar for culture [informs] brains_2b.  Imagine a world where all the social circles work in harmony.  Now, that would be like “original justice”.

0100 Fourth, the family, in particular, celebrates male-female pair bonds.  The family may be described as a three-level interscope, as portrayed in A Primer on the Family, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0101 Fifth, humans are built to endure starvation.  The authors stand out on this point, I admit.

One would imagine that the first organ to shut down when there is not enough food is the energy-intensive brain.  Forget that!  Our bodies prepare for famine by accumulating fat.  Lots of fat!  When food becomes scarce, our bodies metabolize those stores of fat instead of turning off the brain.  After all, the stomach has to complain to somebody, and that is the brain.

The authors shine in this vignette.

0102 Fifth, humans evolve to live longer than is necessary for only reproduction.

Of course, at 100kyr, most humans die of acute infections, other diseases, accidents, predators and people of different cultural phenotypes.  Those who live longer become more and more valuable, not only to their own families, but to various teams, the band, the community, the mega-band and the tribe.  These old folks know the timeless stories that contain valuable information, particularly about rare events.

Sudden changes in the Pleistocene climate may be separated by hundreds or thousands of years.  The old folk keep precious memories.

0103 In chapter six, the authors shift their attention to 30kyr.  This is the time of the Upper Paleolithic, known for innovations in tool manufacture and artistic expression.

Scientists are at a loss to explain the creativity.  Why are humans making clever and well-honed tools now, instead of much earlier?  Why are humans making art that… well… looks better than modern art?  Does it have something to do with changes in the Earth’s climate?  Does it have anything to do with ecological expanses such as Beringia, stretching from eastern Europe to northwestern America.

0104 Why the efflorescence of art and personal decoration?

Why are humans so interested in adornment?

0105 The hypothesis that speech is added to hand talk at the start of our species, two hundred thousand years ago, should allow contemporary archaeologists and natural historians to envision an unexpected causality.  The addition of speech to hand talk gradually opens new vistas into sign-processing.  At first, the voice adorns the word-gesture.  Then, the voice adds a symbolic overtone to the iconic and indexal word gesture. Then, the voice takes on a life of its own.

0106 Consider the famous (or, should I say, “infamous”) Venus of Willendorf as someone who a lonely fellow can talk to.  Newson and Richerson suggest that some Paleolithic cave drawings are… well… pornographic.  Or, are they merely depicting the footprints of various animals?  Their discussion is truly entertaining.

0107 Pierced shells are loaded onto strings.  Speech-talk adorns hand-talk.

In this chapter, the authors offer an extensive interlude describing a tribal gathering.  The characters speak, but they could just as well engage in hand-speech talk.  The Neaderthal and Denisovans probably practice only hand talk.  They do not have the adornment of speech talk.  Humans are like birds.  They are constantly speak as they flutter about.

0108 The authors dwell on a spectacular Paleolithic burial found at Sunghur in Russia.  It dates to between 34 and 25kyr.  What is the story behind this burial?

Well, it must have something to do with “culture”.

Today, when a late modern denizen of the West says the word, “culture”, one typically imagines performances of classical music played on very expensive instruments by highly trained technicians.  One does not think of culture as “information”, much less “habits of sign-processing”.  The specialized vocabulary of anthropology takes the word, “culture”, as its own.  “Culture” is what asks for interpretation.

0109 However, interpretation comes in two flavors.

Implicit abstractions interpret hand and hand-speech talk.

Explicit abstractions interpret speech-alone talk.

So, when the “cultured” musicians play their score, they hope the audience draws implicit abstractions.

But, within each audience, there are “critics” fully capable of drawing explicit abstractions, in order to sell their witticisms to someone who needs content for their snooty publication.

0110 Did I recently read of a performance where the French horns sounded like wolves baying at the moon?How civilized is that?

0111 So, what have Newson and Richerson missed?

Well, as far as Razie Mah’s, The Human Niche, is concerned, I should turn the question around and ask, “What does their book have to offer?”

0112 Here is the fourth depiction of the authors’ approach, using the three-level interscope.

0113 The authors’ approach may be rendered as a purely relational structure.  Key terms in their discussion are on display in every slot in the three-level interscope.  Every slot is occupied.  Particular importance is given to category-crossing terms.  

0114 Because completed three-level interscopes are inherently satisfying, the authors various arguments deliver a feeling that they all come together into a coherent whole.

This is an implicit abstraction.

This book holds together like a well-performed orchestration.

0115 Not unsurprisingly, Razie Mah proposes that the three-level interscope may serve as a purely relational model for langue, the mental system of differences that relates to parole (expressed as hand-talk, hand-speech talk or speech-alone talk).  One human may engage in word-gestures (hand talk) or vocal utterances (speech talk) as parole, but all conversants fill in the blanks of the same relational structure, the three-level interscope that is langue.

See Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2017) Why Only Us?, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0116 But, is the above interscope correct?

No and yes.

No, examine the first column in approach 4.  The virtual nested form in the realm of normal context does not hold together.  Does the normal context of natural selection_3a virtually bring the actuality of sociality_3b into relation with the potential of body development_3a?   Uh, what am I saying?  Yes, it seems to hold together.

That is one beauty of filled-in three-level interscopes.  Even when the interscope is somewhat questionable, the satisfaction gained from having each element occupied is profound.  This is what humans evolved to do.  Newson and Richerson, as professional anthropologists, have (perhaps unintentionally) illustrated one of humanity’s hidden evolved traits.  It is hidden, because anthropologists, pretending to be scientists, rather than rational inquirers, seek out and promote only material and instrumental causation.

0117 Another hidden gem within their approach is pictured in red in the following diagram.

0118 The dyad, body [and] mind_2b, encompasses both social interactions [stimulate] hormonal responses_2b and culture [informs] brains_2b.  The body_2b concerns signals.  The mind_2b concerns signs.

0119 To me, this gem touches base with the notion that hominins adapt to a wider and wider variety of social interactionsin terms of both cathexis and cognition.  Plus, this gem also reminds us that culture consists in information, defined as both signs and sign-processes.  Finally, this gem re-emerges in our current Lebenswelt as one of the evocative distinctions realized from many civilized traditions.  In the Greek and Roman and then Christian traditions, the normal context of spirit₃ brings the actuality of mind [and] body₂ into relation with the possibilities inherent in a soul₁.

0120 This brings me to the stair and step pattern that transports the reader from the realness of genes_2a to the potential of reproductive success_1c.  The stairs coincide with the author’s category-crossing imputations in the terms, “phenotype” and “adaptation”.  The steps go either from potential to actuality or from actuality to potential.

Follow the green arrows in the following figure.

0121 While I may be disappointed that the authors do not identify sign-processing as a key feature of the human niche, I am not disappointed in the authors painting in all the elements of a three-level interscope with features of their story about us.  If, as noted earlier (point 0115), the three-level interscope gives us insight into the nature of langue, then their success in this regard presents the reader with a work of art, as well as a work about science.

Indeed, the authors offer a new look at human evolution.

0128 The authors warn the reader.  There is no “progress” to evolution.  But, there are trends.

There is no “progress” for creatures that make their living within one ecology and one environment.  Why?  Ecologies and environments are always changing.

But, what of a genus whose ultimate niche is the potential of triadic relations?

And, what if signs are triadic relations?

Every ecology and environment is perfused with signs.

Plus, once the southern apes are on their feet, their hands are free for talking.

Then, southern apes hand-talk while cooperating with one another on team activities.

Culture is perfused with signs.

0129 The authors offer another warning.  Runaway natural selection can occur.  Consider the utter uselessness of the beautiful and eye-catching tail of the male peacock.  Yes, it is useless except for one problem.  The female peacocks are impressed by big, beautiful, eye-catching displays.

Is the runaway character of talk similar to the runaway character of the peacock’s tail… or should I say?… the peacock hen’s expectations.

0130 Speech is added as adornment to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.  Perhaps, sexual selection is involved.  Perhaps not.  Why?  The adornment of speech adds a strange semiotic ingredient, a spice, so to speak, to the semiotics of hand talk.  Without letting go of the iconic and indexal character of hand talk, speech adds a symbolic richness, as if the gestural words are distinct from one another, not because of habit, but because they are wrapped in distinct envelopes of formant frequencies.  Each hand talk word images and indicates a referent that can be pictured or pointed to.  But, the addition of speech as an adornment adds a situational expression.

0131 A situational expression?

Sort of like the tail of the male peacock?

Uh oh, is this the start of runaway natural selection?

0132 What happens to humans during the Late Paleolithic, the Epipaleolithic and the Early and the (start of) Developed Neolithic?

Are the archaeological sites of Goblecki Tepe, Neolithic Jericho, Catal Huyuk and Stonehenge dramatic achievements of hand-speech talking cultures?

What is notable about all these sites?

These sites belong to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

These cultures never clearly develop unconstrained social complexity.  Rather, these cultures seem to evaporate as civilization appears in Mesopotamia, then Egypt, then India, and then China.

0133 Towards the end of chapter seven, the authors introduce topics that apply to our current Lebenswelt.

If the authors had been familiar with Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall (or at least, the simple proposal offered in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace), then they would have heard that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0134 There is a twist in human evolution.

Here is a picture.