Early language development in humans

[Lumens]

...in both senses of the word. According to this article, modern language developed 70k years ago. But what I also found interesting is that after our 5th year, we lose the ability to understand recursive language. I never considered that there are concepts that can't be learned (no matter how badly) after a certain age.

Recursive language and modern imagination were acquired simultaneously 70,000 years ago

A genetic mutation that slowed down the development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in two or more children may have triggered a cascade of events leading to acquisition of recursive language and modern imagination 70,000 years ago.

phys.org

 

[Robert Zwilling]

There is a possible hole in the lack of evidence of modern imagination scenario. Doodling in the sand or in the dirt. There is no way to know when it started or what it represented.

It seems like the mind has a mode of operating where it only considers things that have already been seen before and will only look at the those things in ways they have only been used before. It's like total acceptance of viewable reality with no other options.

One place where these rules might not exist are in dreams but dreams are isolated from the conscious state and while they might influence future actions they don't seem to be an easily seen view of our recollection of the physical world. Things can be seen in dreams in a way they haven't been seen before. We can visualize a problem and dream a solution that will fix that problem. Rats can do this when they dream about locating food they have seen. It is probable that dreams use the same thought mechanism that conscious thinking uses.

Can conscious imagination be tapping into the dream state. Would moving everything that is dreamed into conscious memory be an improvement in conscious thinking. Or would that create information overload that leads to a bottleneck the same way being able to view or feel all the automatic decisions our bodies make when they operate would flood the system. It would be like a denial of service attack.

 

[CupofJoe]

It is an interesting read and hypothesis, but I'll need a bit more convincing. I'm old-school - "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"...