Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Adaption: Adaptation in the theory of evolution refers to the process by which a population of organisms evolves traits that enhance their survival and reproduction in a specific environment. These traits are inherited and passed on to subsequent generations, contributing to the organism's fitness within its ecological niche._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Terrence W. Deacon on Adaption - Dictionary of Arguments
I 330 Adaptation/brain/language/Deacon: when it comes to whether the brain adapts to certain requirements of language processing and language acquisition, the following is crucial: apart from the fact that a noun remains a noun and a change of time a change of time, regardless of the words involved, there must be more constant things between individuals, certain functions that are always processed in the same way in different ways under all conditions. There must be certain invariant sensory motoric or mnemonic features that could be adapted. >Language acquisition, >Invariance, >Covariance, >Language processing. I 331 Such characteristics are present in the case of alarm calls from animals, e.g. when a distinction is made between enemies on the ground and enemies of the air. I 331/332 Symbols/symbolic learning/adaptation/Deacon: it is precisely the complex structure that forms symbols among each other that make it impossible for them to be genetically assimilated. >Symbols/Deacon. Most grammatical operations have no direct connection to things in the world. Therefore, there is hardly any innate reference in the human language. The grammatical peculiarities also change from language to language, so that there is little consistency for possible adaptation. Deep structure: maybe this is what is open to adaptation? In order to adapt a function, it is not necessary for a certain place in the brain to remain constant for this function. Newer theories speak more of "language programs" and "data structures". >Deep structure, >Grammar, >Symbolic learning. I 333 The way these structures are distributed in the brain should remain invariant when assimilated in an evolutionary process. >Language origins. Speech processing: interestingly, it is not the logical operations but the analysis of the physical signals that are assigned to specific brain regions. This has major consequences. The grammatical structures are the ones that have had the least chance of establishing a fixed place in the brain for their processing. >Brain/Deacon._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
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