Evolution Of Language Quotes

• It seems inconceivable that a species of human could possess fully modern language and not be fully modern in all other ways, too. For this reason, the evolution of language is widely judged to be the culminating event in the emergence of humanity as we know it today.

  Richard Leakey

  Humanity, Events, Today

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• We can move no faster than the evolution of our language, and this is certainly part of what the psychedelics are about: they force the evolution of language.

  Terence McKenna

  Moving, Psychedelic, Evolution

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• Memetics provides a new approach to the evolution of language in which we apply Darwinian thinking to two replicators, not one. On this theory, memetic selection, as well as genetic selection, does the work of creating language.

  Susan Blackmore

  Thinking, Two, Creating

  Susan Blackmore (2000). “The Meme Machine”, p.99, Oxford Paperbacks

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• One way to think about what psychedelics are is as catalysts for language development. They literally force the evolution of language. You cannot evolve faster than your language because the language defines the culture of meaning. So if there's a way to accelerate the evolution of language then this is real consciousness expansion and it's a permanent thing. The great legacies of the 60's are in attitudes and language. It boils down to doing your own thing, feeling the vibe, ego-trip, blowing your mind.

  Terence McKenna

  Attitude, Real, Thinking

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• The bicameral mind with its controlling gods was evolved as a final stage of the evolution of language. And in this development lies the origin of civilization.

  Julian Jaynes

  Lying, Civilization, Mind

  Julian Jaynes (2000). “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”, p.136, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Metaphor isn't just a fancy turn of speech. It shapes our thoughts and feelings, reaches out to grasp new experience, and even binds our five disparate senses. James Geary's fascinating and utterly readable I is an Other brings the news on metaphor from literature and economics, from neuroscience and politics, illuminating topics from consumer behavior to autism spectrum disorders to the evolution of language. As a writer, as a teacher, and as someone just plain fascinated by how our minds work, I've been waiting years for exactly this book.

  James Richardson

  Teacher, Book, New Experiences

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