Relics of a Stoneage Past

I have often wondered how communication evolved among humans. It seems that nonverbal communication came first (gestures, pointing, and such). I have read (but I don't remember where) that traders used to use sign language to communication with people in other places who didn't share a verbal language. However, there is a difference between nonverbals and sign language. In fact, sign language shares many of the features of a spoken languages (a stable grammar, a stable set of signs, combinations of signs based on known rules...). Nonverbals are not fixed in grammar or meaning. They are often idiosyncratic, unconscious, and unreliable. Yet, people often rely on nonverbals to interpret a person's true intent. This is rather problematic since nonverbals are so ambiguous.

Spoken language appears to be the next significant development. Some scholars such as Chomsky and Pinker argue that language is an innate potential universal among all humans. In other words, we are born being able to learn a language (or languages), and this appears to blossom at around age 3. Of course, spoken language is highly flexible, dramatic, and expressive. The problem is that spoken language is difficult to remember (see the Humans as Generalists post). People can remember the gist of conversations, but not the details. Even the gist tends to erode over time. And so, we needed a way to record messages so that we didn't keep repeating the same mistakes all the time (reduce human error), so that we didn't need to reinvent the wheel over and over again (learn, maintain a pool of knowledge). There are several ways that we could extend the limitations of the human brain using an external representation: visuals and writing. Visual representations came first.

The first visual representations were the cave paintings. These drawings were somewhat stylized and yet still were fairly isomorphic to the things and objects they were created to represent. Most likely these paintings were used as memory enhancers (for storytelling) when instructing the young. They may also have been used for "sympathetic magic". It is clear that this method of representation has several limitations: 1) you need some skill to draw the representations (skill, learning curve), 2) you can't take the representations with you (lack of portability), and 3) it would be difficult to remember the experience over time (subject to erosion). Yet, these cave painting types of communicative interactions still exist today in the form of movie theaters, theater plays/opera, museums, and rock concerts. Put people together in an enclosed, dark space and fill it with light, sound, and images and you have reenacted a form of communication that first began over 30,000 years ago.

Visual representations transfered from rock to clay to paper thus resolving the portability problem. Unfortunately, the learning curve was still high and perhaps more importantly, visuals were difficult to put into a unified language patterns (an organized sign and symbol system). So, gradually, visual representations such as hieroglyphics and cuneiform reduced down to a more limited set of often used symbols (around 500 symbols in ancient Egyptian, around 2000 characters in modern Japanese). Finally, the Phoenicians began representing sounds instead of things and the phonetic alphabet was born. English uses 26 symbols to represent an unlimited number of words (though unfortunately spelling doesn't keep up with pronunciation). Just about anyone can learn 26 symbols (though we still spend the majority of our lives learning to read and write).

The problem now was one of distribution. First, reading and writing was restricted to certain groups: 1) nobles, 2) religious people, and 3) scribes. Scribes were highly trained (specialized). Nobles wrote laws down (and suddenly the laws became more permanent and binding). Religious people had their holy books (the word of God) and the written word was not to be questioned because suddenly the spiritual had manifested itself physically. God was no longer some unseen shadow, but was encapsulated in words in the holy book sitting right in front of people's eyes. Of course, most people couldn't read, and this tended to give power into the hands of the religious leaders (since they were able to give voice to the word of God). People in the US still tend to trust the written word. Every year millions of dollars are scammed away from people.

Of course, visuals and sounds have not disappeared. In fact, humans were able to overcome some of the earlier distribution problems with these media. Now we can get an unlimited stream of sights and sounds (CD's, videos, TV, Internet...). In fact there is perhaps too much rather than too little of these media now. The big difference between media in the 19th and 20th centuries and now is that people have much more control over the production of messages. While film making, sound production, and print were pretty much restricted to a limited group of people up to 20 years ago, now people can create their own visuals, films, music, books, art... relatively cheaply using personal computers. Unfortunately, we are not receiving much instruction on how to do this and do it wisely. People of my generation have limited skills and have been conditioned to be passive message receivers rather than active message producers. However, I hope that you will develop skills in all these media (or at least a couple of them) and consider how these media can best be used to communicate, to create a better world, and to live a happy life.