“Our deep-time ancestors very likely had the genetic resources needed for formal quantitative reasoning, but without the cultural invention of numerals and a umber line, those resources could not be exploited. The same may be true of language. The central role of cultural learning in the construction and transmission of language (qua social phenomenon) is enough to show that the use of language depends on cultural scaffolds, not just appropriate genetic potential.”
Quote by Ronald J. Planer
Work
From Signal to Symbol: The Evolution of Language
Browse quotes and source details for this work. more
Author
You May Also Like
“The road to hell is paved with intractable recursions, bad equilibria, and information cascades.”
Source: Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
“I put an apple on my table. Then I put myself inside this apple. What tranquility!”
Source: Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings
Source: Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder
Source: Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays
Source: It Was You Who Made My Blue Eyes Blue
Source: Number and Numbers
Source: Savvy Survival. . . : for women starting over alone later in life.