Customer Reviews

The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, And Intelligence Evolved From Our Primate Ancestors To Modern Humans

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At last, a worthy antidote to the noxious trend that explains all human consciousness and behaviour by the evolution and activities of the brain alone! Cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and neurophilosophy, while adding complexity, have embraced the assumption that basically posit life unfolding entirely as evolving, interacting genes. This book reminds us that opposition to such genetic programming need not imply mysticism, idealism, or anything "spooky". Greenspan and Shanker stand for the predominance of cultural learning passed on generation to generation, its content always changing and never complete.

A second theme of this book is that it supplies strong evidence that rationality and cognition are not opposed to emotion but are in fact the fulfillment of the emotional education hopefully received by every healthy child. To think is to emote, but it is refined emotion that functions in a controlled manner. This is an antidote to the Cartesians, Freudians, and perhaps even Piagetians who have insisted that, developmentally, the rise of reason in maturity overcomes primitive or childish emotional drives.

It should be noted that such emotional learning is assumed to have culturally evolved over millions of years, with reversals here and deadends there. Each generation passes on its cultural truths primarily through the interactions between infant and mother or other primary caregivers, but each generation also may contribute in subtle ways to this body of learning or, on occasion, subtract from it. Each child is thought to recapitulate in its developmental process in a matter of years or months the learning it took culture millions of years to learn the first time. Language is the primary example here.

The authors find little evidence that such central things like language or personal memory are innate to the human brain. The nature-nurture debate becomes appropriately complexified. The big difference here - the antidote to genetic imperialism - is that it is shown that experience more determines genetics than genetics determine experience.
Greenspan and Shanker list 16 stages of individual f/e (functional/emotional) development, plus a timeline of 12 steps for the f/e evolution of human cognition. The neologism "meme" is thankfully not used, though they see human behaviour and the quality of conscious experience arising from culturally transmitted learning. They cite Terrence Deacon approvingly, so it must be guessed that the authors accept structural brain adaptations occurring along with the slow invention of formal language structures. They don't deny the brain's influence, but it is only part of the dance duo with learning, and in this book it clearly is not leading.

However, the authors seem more comfortable in their specialties - Greenspan with studies of infant care and autism, Shanker with Wittgensteinian pretense speaking for the symbolic activities of certain bonobo. They spend less time on the slow discovery of speech, symbolism, and thought in the human species than they do on its rapid appearance in individual upbringing. They seem to accept too early and gradual an origin for formal human language, not being critical enough of nonhuman communication or of early paleoanthropological finds. As a result, all prehistoric discoveries are treated as proof of the presence of abstract ideation. It is not noted that the islands of discovery that seem to indicate a very early emergence of symbolic interaction are just that, islands. There is (as yet) no indication that such activities were carried on anywhere else in the succeeding millennia. Nor do authors deal with early humanity's immersion in the sacred; language is accepted as being invented to meet functional needs and for the pleasure of communicating.

Another hesitation is that the first two parts of the book have all the juice. Greenspan and Shanker lay out their case in the first 184 pages, leaving the rest for sometimes excruciating exegesis or jumps into global recommendations. Indeed, they emphasize so strongly "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" that they have added a hopeful final chapter to guide us all toward Global Interdependency through the education of emotional response in every child's first year. Alas, we have many hurdles to overcome before every child on the planet can receive the loving interactive attention that will lead it to the authors' highest stage of development in old age: "...true wisdom free from the self-centered and practical worries of earlier stages" (p. 91) and a peaceful world in general.

Optimistic? Sure, but this tome is still highly recommended for its important defense of culture and learning.

One last thing: There's 504 pages in the book, not 320 like Amazon.ca states.

The 'First Idea' is long and tedious. I suspect 300 of the 450 pages are unnecessary. Despite this, some of the insights are well worth the effort one must invest to push through the book. The first 100 pages have all the meat. The next 200 are optional. The last 150 are counter productive.

The book proposes a theory by which language emerges from the innate human catalog of emotional states instead of 'logic'. Rather than argue language was 'built' as a 'logical' solution to a dangerous world, they argue that language is a technique for managing or 'avoiding' catastrophic emotional reactions. According to the authors, the caregiver - infant pair who can 'dance' their way through unexpected and frightening events without panic, survive and thrive. They do this by developing a shared set of gestural/auditory icons representing past, present and future emotional states. By shifting rising catastropic emotions like fight and flight out of the 'present state' and into 'icons of the dance', the pair can modulate emotional extremes.

Think about it. Could 'emotion' be the bedrock of logic?

Thinking about this, I was immediately struck by my inability to clearly describe 'emotions'. Are there 2 emotions? 4 emotions? 8 emotions? The shortest list of 'emotions' is binary: fear and anger. A slightly longer list includes 6 emotions: happy, angry, surprise, disgust, fear, sad. Once you get in the mood, the list can get pretty long: Acceptance, Anger, Anticipation, Boredom, Disgust, Envy, Fear, Guilt, Hate, Joy, Jealousy, Love, Remorse, Sorrow, Surprise, Curiosity, Fascination, Confusion, Anxiety, Bewilderment, Frustration, Chagrin, Despair, Hope, Satisfaction, and Confidence. And, there are a variety of emotions which are hard to encapsulate in a single term: 'it is finished', 'I know that', 'I understand'.

If this long list were not confusing enough, there is the common distinction between 'feeling' and 'emotion'. Many use the term 'emotion' to describe 'that which is remembered about a feeling'. Others reverse this, calling 'emotion' the precursor to 'feeling'. Personally, I prefer calling 'emotion' primordial or instinctive, something that emerges from the deepest aspects of our souls. In my view, 'feelings' are the memories of 'emotion'. It is just my vocabulary, and many may use an entirely difference scheme for describing what they experience.

Thus, the assertion that 'language is rooted in emotion' is hardly helpful unless there is a detailed treatment of what the authors mean by 'emotion'. Such a discussion will not be found anywhere in the book's 450 pages.

As I understand it, the authors are arguing that language emerges from the 'dance' infant and caregiver join. The 'dance' is composed of rhythmic 'action' and 'absorb reaction' states which both infant and caregiver cooperatively alternate between. This dance is initiated by the baby when he instinctively seeks to capture the attention of the caregiver by offering a 'stimulus' (crying, smiling, etc.). If the action (a smile) captures the attention of the caregiver, a 'happy' exchange can ensue (the dance). If the baby cannot capture the attention of the caregiver, it will often increase the energy of the stimulus (smile becomes vocalization, becomes crying, etc.) until exhausted or entirely frustrated. The authors suggest this pattern is inate to all human infants (and most mammals). Further, if the infant demonstrates limited interest or capacity for this dance, there is probably going to be an IQ or psychological problem exhibited in later years.

Given this 'dance' which infant and caregiver engage in, language is seen as a refinement which allows greater control of both external 'reality' and internal emotions. Just as ballroom dancers will learn specific 'moves' and then sequences of moves, there will naturally emerge collaborative patterns which represent or symbolize emotional states. Sequences of these states can elicit predictable 'new' emotional states. Memorizing 'moves in the dance' involves defining boundaries and key signals. The process forms the foundation for memorizing words. The pattern of the dance becomes the 'sentence'.

In terms of the caretaker's interactions with babies, the dance is memorized and eventually develops the pair's ability to negotiate undesired or unexpected experiences in life without catastrophic emotion (fear, anger, despair, etc.). The catastropic emotions close out an opportunity for cooperation. The non-catastrophic emotions include joy, curiosity, acceptance, anticipation, etc. If cooperation is essential for the survival of one or both partners, the management of emotional states are all important.

All this is outlined within the first 50 pages, and it represents an interesting proposal for the evolution of human language. Unfortunately, the following 350 pages of supporting arguments are tedious. In particular, the authors repeatedly refer to a table of `functional emotional developmental levels':
1. Shared attention and regulation (from birth)
2. Engagement and relating (2 to 4 months)
3. Two way intentional emotional signaling and communication (4 to 8 months)
4. Long chains of coregulated emotional signaling, social problem solving and formation of presymbolic self
5. Creating representations, symbols or ideas (18 months on)
6. Building bridges between ideas, logical thinking (2.5 years on)
7. etc.

This developmental pattern (the Affect Diathesis Hypothesis) is then the scaffold from which `an explanation of everything' is constructed. We wander through a recap of 2 million years of human evolution, the evolution of societies, and the necessary admonitions for saving humanity from itself. None of these were particularly interesting.

No one knows what caused the evolutionary giant leap from the apes to humans. There have been all kinds of theories from the opposable thumb to walking upright. In this book two eminent psychologists propose a theory that symbols, particularly language tought from one generation to the next drove the development of intelligence. As such, they come down firmly on the nurture rather than nature side of the argument. From watching children, they are both specialists in child development, they persuasively argue that children are taught symbolic thinking. From here they use evidence from the fossil record and neuroscience to develop their theory. Fascinating reading.

How did symbols, language and information evolve from primates to modern humans? In The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, And Intelligence Evolved From Our Primate Ancestors To Modern Humans, collaborative co-authors Stanley I. Greenspan and Stuart G. Shanker move beyond the nature/nurture debate to provide a new theory of human development: that the critical step in symbol formation, language and thinking isn't genetic, but a learned capacity dependent on nurturing interactions and cultural practices passed down between generations. Evidence from their own research and collaborations with others provide the backbone of a fascinating discourse.

When asked to cite what he believed but couldn't prove, Dan Dennett responded by saying that language was required for consciousness.

Interestingly Dennett's view easily harmonizes with strong trends in contemporary wisdom. The larger view is that there is something particular and special about humans and their capacity for language that is materially different than what evolutionarily has preceded them.

This book is a breath of fresh air for its helpful insight that humans are not materially different from what preceded them just more articulated in their thought processes and means of communicating them.

In seriatim the book traces infant development for the capacity of spoken language and compares that developing capacity with different species of animals within the animal kingdom. In a way, it's kind of reminiscent of the old medical school "ontogeny recapitulates philogeny." For those lucky enough not to have experienced medical school, the famous saying refers to the similarity between developmental stages of an unborn fetus and the various lifeforms in the animal kingdom. For example, the fertilized zygote resembles a one celled organism. The early developing fetus resembles a fishlike creature and so on.

In this book, needless to say, the more articulated the comparison being made between the infant's developing speech capacity, the more the authors will be inclined to use a more evolutionarily complicated life form.

Significantly the authors use the similarities between humans and other animals to highlight their basic likenesses which according to the authors subsist in their mutual emotive acquisition of knowledge. In this sense, this book is like Read Montague's Why Choose this Book wherein Montague merged Alan Turing mechanistic reasoning with emotive values to create an up to date model of cognition.

Again, these features are all welcome.

Where I think the authors falter is later in the book when they try to apply their theories to group dynamics. But even so the book remains healthy food for thought and welcome insight if only for the knowledge that when we visit the zoo, the animals looking back at us are really not that much different at all but certainly not lacking consciousness just because they don't speak out language.

Since the research that supports the theory proposed by these authors is so thoroughly documented, it may prove too technical for the average reader. Still, the insights are stupendous and easily verifiable by anyone with good parenting skills. The fact that, when applied to people with autism, the results are outstanding and highly unusual, tends to validate their theory.

I found the book easy to skim and love the diverse perspectives of each author and contributor.

Now I wish someone would put all this together with another book, somewhat related: Nicholas Ostler's _Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World_. In this book, the author summarizes how various languages spread, supercede others, dominate, or suppress other languages, how they are learned, how creole and pidgin languages develop, the structure of various languages, etc.

Perhaps if all these authors got together with someone else, they could explain how various languages shape cognition and even, perhaps, perception, framing the world as each person sees it, and maybe how various cultures tend to see reality, based on the language in which they think.

In some languages, the verb comes first and in others, last. In some languages, adjectives come before nouns and in others, after. In some languages, nouns can be feminine, masculine, or neuter. In others, there is no neuter. All of this must shape how humans see things and think--at least as much as emotions do, if the theory these authors propose is accurate.

I heard a report on public radio about how, when people who speak Japanese view a picture of a tiger in a jungle, the parts of their brains that get stimulated are the parts that are viewing the jungle. When English speakers view the same picture, the parts of their brains that get stimulated are the the parts that are viewing the tiger. I don't know how they measured this and I don't know if language has anything to do with it, but it certainly seems to be a nurture, not nature thing.

The world is evolving and there is so much more to be understood about where we came from that may have implications about where we're going.

This book helps move us forward on that journey.

- Norma T. Bauer
[...]

Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World

This is a very interesting subject. While some of it seems a bit repetitious, it is very well researched and presents a fascinating view of human evolution. This book isn't for everyone, but everyone should understand what it's about. My personal view is that the author's downplay the role of genetics a bit too much. More likely, imho, genetics and cultural transmission had to work in tandem. But even with that minor criticism, this book presents a strong case for examining the role of emotional signaling and the importance of it for the development of our young. The family leave provisions in the US are pitiful compared to other industrialized countries. The first year is such a critical time in the development of a child that it should not be left to strangers at a day care center. After reading this book that will become abundantly clear to the reader.

This book should rank as one of the most important books published in the decade if not the century. Stanley Greenspan has studied the emotional development of children for twenty years and has developed insights about the development of mental processing in children. He has tested these insights by applying them to developing strategies for helping children diagnosed with autism. These strategies have brought a majority of such children close to or into the normal range of mental functioning. It seems to me to be "a cure for autism"!

Now, in this book, he and coauthor Shanker show how emotional interactions with children-playing with them, especially in long chains of back and forth connections that are fun for both adult and child-leads the child to the steps required for cognitive development. Emotions are not inferior to thinking, they are the foundation of the development of thinking.

The authors cite MRI data on the creation of synaptic connections in the brain associated with emotional experiences and relate that to Greenspan's work to hypothesize that human cognitive development has been accelerated by the accretion of gains made in one generation of children onto the next generation through the enhanced emotional and cognitive advances resulting from caregiving practices, generation after generation. In other words, they are positing the evolution of the human mind not through genetic change but through coevolving caregiving practices.

This hypothesis solves one of the most puzzling matters of human evolution-how did human beings surge in cognitive development in the last 8 or 10 thousand years, much too fast for genetic change. The authors' answer is that there was not genetic change, but there was the capacity for cognitive enhancement during the early growth of individuals through interaction with caregivers. And as the interactive patterns of caregivers with infants and children developed, so also did the number and complexity of synaptic connections in the brains of the children individually and, over time, cumulatively and collectively.

The implications of this insight are astounding. They provide a foundational basis for all human sciences that can lead to ways of diagnosing cognitive, behavioral and emotional difficulties on the basis of core causes rather than mere observational data as is currently the case with DSM IV. And arising from that, clinical work with such people can become at least as scientifically informed as physical medicine.

But there are larger implications for public policy and education. This approach provides a basis for saying reactive behavior and narrow frames of reference are not just individual ways of being, but are examples of developmental delays and should be dealt with as such, with compassion, indeed, but also with clarity regarding what they are.

The book is not as easy read, especially the later chapters, but there are few books ever written that more deserve to be read and understood.

This book is written with a very exquisit languaje, very comprehensiveley written for everybody not just especialist in psychology. It is a classic, i fully recomend it.

This is another brilliant book from Dr. Stanley Greenspan and links emotion with intelligence. I quote him, Piaget and John Holt on a page called Intelligence on Stop Alien Abductions. Greenspan refutes the Cartesians stating that emotion is necessary and part of thinking. There will never be machine intelligence. A must reading for people interested in the concept of intelligence and neurological development. I also recommend John Holt's book, How Children Learn.