Presumably, there was a time when humans hadn’t yet developed written language, or even spoken language. As our minds and vocal cords developed over the millennia, our means of communication gradually developed from primitive grunts and hoots to the many varied and beautiful languages we have today. So my question is this - if written language evolved over time, will there ever be a time when we have evolved beyond written language? Will we ever evolve beyond spoken language?
There is no reason why human communication should be limited to these two forms of expression, so what other forms could conceivably await us in the future? Do you think these future forms will be facilitated by technology, or will they be a result of on-going biological evolution? In other words, will we all have receivers implanted into our heads and send/receive data via a vast neural analogue of the internet, beaming thoughts and ideas directly into one another’s brains, or will we some day develop our brains to the point where “natural” (ie, unassisted) telepathy is possible?
oh all right- Direct Neural Interface Technotelepathy
In fact the artificial minds of the future may converse purely in machine code, or qubits, or exchange programs as complicated as a human being or more; you could exchange an entire mind’s worth of thoughts if the situation warranted it.
Having said that, I don’t see any reason to expect paranormal telpathy to develop;
if there is any kind of direct contact from mind to mind, it will be a natural phenomenon, rather than a supernatural one.
Written language is not a fundamentally different form of language, per se. There’s no evidence that it is anything but an example of technical, rather than biological, evolution.
So I suspect that future evolution of language forms will also be technical rather than biological.
The problem with brains, thoughts and devices is that the brain is effectively a “strong encryption” device itself. The device could see the neurons fire and detect their pattern of fire to perhaps even a great degree of accuracy, but it cannot know what thought, idea or concept caused that pattern.
The device might be able to be “trained” by subjecting the thinker to various stimuli and observing the fire-pattern, but even in the far future this seems a clumsy and blunt instrument.
nitpick: I’ve never seen any evidence that any non-humans had a true language. Neadertals may have, but not the earlier hominids. Alarm cries and the like don’t count.
I second the argument against telepathy. No two brains function exactly alike, and small differences quickly add up in a complex system like the brain. Suppose a spot in your brain when stimulated generates a marvelous philosophical thought about the inevitability of evolution beyond language. In my brain, activating that same spot may only give me the urge to scratch my left arm.
Keep in mind, though, that just because mental communication may not be possible, that doesn’t mean cognitive simulation and communication with machines is impossible. Thoughts output directly to the internet may not be psychic, but is still really cool.
nit-pick to your nit-pick: you meant to say non-sapiens, not non-humans. Technically, any species of the genus Homo is “human”.
There certainly is no evidence yet that hominids other us or Neanderthals had any kind of language, but it’s hard to imagine that the type of language we speak did not have a long heritage, evolving from a more simple type of verbal or gestural language that at least contained nouns and verbs, if nothing else. The idea that fully articualte language sprung into being with one or two simple mutations doesn’t seem likely. But perhaps we’ll never actually know.
In one of Isaac Asimov’s books from the Foundation series, the Second Foundationers had evolved their communications skills to encompass much more than mere spoken/written language–their range of expressions included emotional stances, body languages, minute gestures, etc, all of which together communicated much more complex and subtle things.
In the same way that spoken and written languages have developed in complexity, I would expect communication to expand on spoken and written languages, rather than replace them. We won’t evolve beyond language, it’s just that our current languages will seem childishly simple, much like we view cavemen now pointing to a fire and saying “unga”.
Can you think of primitive methods of communication that are no longer used (and that aren’t bound to particular circumstances, like the presence of carrier pigeons)? I can only think of one, which is the drum languages found in the Southern Hemisphere, that are no longer used or are waning as they are replaced by current technology. But even that’s just a particular encoding of language. Was there a time when humans communicated by smell, perhaps?
**"…language evolved over time, will there ever be a time when we have evolved beyond written language? Will we ever evolve beyond spoken language?" ~ Bibliovore **
Yes! But by then we won’t be called “human”. Our amazing system of transfering imformation is what makes us “human” and it is the only aspect of our animal existence that makes us different from dogs and cats and other low-life creatures.
But take heart! We are just begining to understand our own language and it is evolveing even today . No no , not just in the adding of new and better words , but in fundamental ways, like I offer in parallel with the howler monkey example below…
*The baby howling monkey listens to his kinfolk jabber as they go about their monkey buisness in the delicious leafed trees. Everytime he hears another monkey shrieks “Eeeeekeee!” he usually sees a hissing snake in the tree and everytime he hears “Aaaaaaaack!” he usually sees a lion on the prowl. Then one day he sees a lion. “Aaaaaack!” he cries.
And all hell breaks loose. Scampering, whooping, swinging monkeys are a noisy blur everywhere, until finally at length the monkey troup calms down.
The head howler monkey then swings over and knocks Baby out of the tree.
Baby that day learned a valuable lesson…their is no word for “lion” in howler monkey language, “Aaaaack!” means “danger from below” and all Baby had seen was a lion sleeping peacefully at a safe distance away near a waterhole, and so, through his innocent stupidity, Baby introduced the concept of “lioness”- a generalised lion that continues through time, to the howler monkey lexicon.*
It is in this manner that our language will likely evolve.