Interesting TED Video and article suggesting that language has driven all biological and cultural evolution and is our most powerful neurological social technology allowing us to implant a thought into someone’s mind without the need for surgery according to Mark Pagel. Language created social learning which has enabled human evolution and these discrete pulses of sound alter the internal settings inside someone’s head to suit an individual’s interests.
Related articles
- Birdbooker Report 257 | @GrrlScientist (guardian.co.uk)
- Birdbooker Report 250 | @GrrlScientist (guardian.co.uk)
- Why culture is chunky and genes are creamy (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
- Language revolution for Metropolians (metropoliablog.fi)
- The Biology of the Language Faculty: Its Perfection, Past and Future (linguaphileapprentice.wordpress.com)
- The Culture of Language: Lost in Translation? (architecturedance.wordpress.com)
- Customizing BlackBerry 10 Language Settings (blogs.blackberry.com)
I think this is one reason why visual language has become relatively more important recently. Our need/opportunity to cooperate globally would be impacted by our inability to share thoughts due to the lack of a universal language (even though Engliash is trying to fill the gap.) But visual images, though occasionally ambiguous, are generally capable of universal understanding.