{"id":9561,"date":"2025-09-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9561"},"modified":"2025-05-22T19:47:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T19:47:47","slug":"looking-at-steven-mithens-book-2024-the-language-puzzle-part-5-of-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9561","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Steven Mithen&#8217;s Book (2024) &#8220;The Language Puzzle&#8221; (Part 5 of 23)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>0033 What about monkeys and apes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As far as psychological experiments with chimpanzees are concerned, these great apes practice&nbsp;<em>the relationality inherent in the category-based nested form<\/em>, each on his or her own and not in coordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0034 Here is a picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide09.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide09.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9562\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide09.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide09-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0035 For example, a captive chimpanzee may be challenged by a banana, suspended above reach on a string from the ceiling of an enclosure containing several large boxes.&nbsp;&nbsp;The chimpanzee may figure out that the boxes may be stacked, allowing access to the banana.&nbsp;&nbsp;The chimpanzee performs whatever it takes to turn&nbsp;<em>the metaphor that a word is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle<\/em>&nbsp;into something literal.&nbsp;&nbsp;But, it cannot um&#8230;&nbsp;<em>displace the referent<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0036 Say what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is the deal that becomes plain in chapter four, concerning monkeys and apes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide10.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide10.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide10.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide10-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0037 How crazy is that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I use the principle of uniformitarianism, and I work forward from the common ancestor with the chimpanzee (say, 7 Myr), who solves challenges for food, and I work backwards from civilized folk, who will solve a puzzle because it offers a challenge, then do the forward and backward exercises meet in the same&#8230; um&#8230;. location?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I mean, does the label, &#8220;challenge&#8221;, remain the same when passing between the starting point and the end point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0038 If the word, &#8220;challenge&#8221;, is a piece of a jigsaw, then one edge will eventually connect through other pieces to a specific reward, especially food, and a different edge will eventually connect to a reconceptualization of the specific reward, as something that might be called, &#8220;satisfaction&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0039 What does this imply?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, if I take&nbsp;<em>the metaphor that a word is like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle<\/em>&nbsp;literally, then&nbsp;<em>the content-level actuality<sub>2a<\/sub>&nbsp;in the following two-level interscope<\/em>&nbsp;corresponds to&nbsp;<em>a word<\/em>, whether gestural (as in sign-language) or spoken (as in speech-alone talk).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide11.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide11.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9564\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide11.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide11-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0040 Obviously, this is&nbsp;<em>what monkeys and chimpanzees do,<\/em>&nbsp;with the chimpanzees performing better.&nbsp;&nbsp;Once the pieces fit into an assembly, then the assemblies fit together, and the food is obtained.&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>The referent is not displaced.<\/em>&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>The challenge<\/em>&nbsp;is&nbsp;<em>to sensibly construct a solution<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0041 Often enough, biologists stop with this sensible construction and go on to say that&nbsp;<em>the general intelligence of monkeys and apes<\/em>&nbsp;is adaptive, because it solves problems.&nbsp;&nbsp;But, the spoken term, &#8220;the cognitive capacity of monkeys and apes&#8221;, is a label that introduces a perspective-level actuality<sub>2c<\/sub>, that does not exist for monkeys or apes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Monkeys and apes do not realize<sub>1c<\/sub>&nbsp;that they have satisfied the conditions whereby the actual solution<sub>2b<\/sub>&nbsp;can be displaced by the term, &#8220;challenge&#8221;<sub>2c<\/sub>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, the biologist does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>0033 What about monkeys and apes? As far as psychological experiments with chimpanzees are concerned, these great apes practice&nbsp;the relationality inherent in the category-based nested form, each on his or her own and not in coordination. 0034 Here is a picture. 0035 For example, a captive chimpanzee may be challenged by a banana, suspended above [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[417],"tags":[571],"class_list":["post-9561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-the-language-puzzle"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Looking at Steven Mithen&#039;s Book (2024) &quot;The Language Puzzle&quot; (Part 5 of 23) - An Archaeology of the Fall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9561\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking at Steven Mithen&#039;s Book (2024) &quot;The Language Puzzle&quot; (Part 5 of 23) - An Archaeology of the Fall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"0033 What about monkeys and apes? 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