WEBVTT

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So we're here in the center of technology,

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and I just wanted to ask
a simple question.

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What was the greatest
technological discovery ever made,

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the basis for all subsequent technology,

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and when was it made?

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The greatest technological breakthrough
of human beings is language,

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invented 2 million years ago

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in the first and greatest information age

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by Homo erectus, mom and dad.

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(Laughter)

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Homo erectus was one
of the most successful creatures

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to ever walk the Earth.

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They lived on this planet
for nearly 2 million years.

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We have so far lived on this planet

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for a certain 200,000,
perhaps as many as 500,000.

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So we haven't lived a quarter of the time
that Homo erectus lived on this planet.

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Homo erectus was a marvelous creature.

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It had the greatest brain
the world had ever seen,

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maybe the universe had ever seen.

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The range of size of the Homo erectus
brain was about 950 cc,

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75% of the size of an adult
Homo sapiens male

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and roughly in the range
of many Homo sapiens females -

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and that proves to us
that size doesn't matter.

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(Laughter)

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The Homo erectus brain and body
were both phenomenal.

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That was the first body -

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Homo erectus stood
about as tall as we do.

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They weighted probably around 150 pounds

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and they were the first creatures
in the history of the universe

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capable of persistent hunting.

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Our bipedal gait enables us
to run long distances

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and cool down more efficiently
than quadrupeds.

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So, Homo erectus was actually
able to chase down its prey

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until the prey either
died of heat exhaustion,

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or Homo erectus beat it to death
with a stone axe or a club.

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Homo erectus was a marvelous creature.

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And they had many accomplishments.

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Homo erectus made a variety of tools,
starting with the Olduwan tools.

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And they kept these tools,
and they transported these tools,

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and they improved these tools,

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so that they had an upgrade:
Acheulean tools.

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And they upgraded this to Levallois tools.

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And each tool was better
than the one before.

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But they weren't limited to stone tools.

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Homo erectus also made spears,

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wooden tools that we have found,
hundreds-of-thousands-year-old spears.

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And they made two kinds of spears.

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They made spears for throwing
and spears for thrusting.

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What does a spear for thrusting mean?

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It means you're a 5 foot 8 to 6 foot 1
Homo erectus male, 150 pounds,

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and you run up and stick
that spear into a mastodon.

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These were fierce creatures,
these were brave creatures,

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and they were extremely
intelligent creatures.

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So tools were one
of the great accomplishments

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that lets us know what kind of brain
they were developing.

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They also had representations of reality.

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This is a 250,000 year-old

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partially naturally-formed and
partially artificially-formed by humans,

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by Homo erectus, Venus.

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It's called the Venus of Berekhat Ram,

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and there's some evidence
that it was dyed red in certain parts.

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A shell found on the island of Java

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with engravings on the shell
by Homo erectus.

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Homo erectus wasn't simply a toolmaker.

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They were boat makers.

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They traveled the oceans
2 million years ago.

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How do we know this?

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Well, the first island that we find
evidence of Homo erectus

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is the island of Flores in Indonesia,

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which would have been about
a 24-mile boat trip, visible from land,

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about the size of the English Channel,

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except that Flores was, then and now,

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surrounded by the most treacherous
and strongest ocean currents in the world.

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They couldn't have swum to Flores.

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They got there by boat.

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This is actually the island of Flores,
and, it doesn't, you know -

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I don't think Homo erectus
looked quite like that, but ...

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(Laughter)

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Archaeologists have
actually tried to simulate

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the voyages of Homo Erectus
by making rafts

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similar to the kinds of rafts
that Homo erectus would have made.

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We know because of the amount of islands
that we find colonies of Homo erectus

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that their getting to these islands
was more than coincidence.

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We know by the size of the colonies
they must have had there

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that multiple individuals
had to arrive about the same time

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to start these colonies,

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and we know therefore
that they had to plan.

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So one was Flores.

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Another was Socotra, then and now,

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150 miles into the ocean
from the nearest land,

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where we find Homo erectus colonies.

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That requires imagination,

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that sailing to something in exploration,

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and Homo erectus seems to do this.

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There's also evidence
that Homo erectus had colonies on Crete.

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So Homo erectus was a seafarer,

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Homo erectus was a toolmaker,

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Homo erectus was
a very intelligent person,

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but they did more than this.

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Homo erectus also
traveled the world by land.

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Homo erectus evolved
1.9 million years ago.

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By 1.7 million years ago,
which is not very long,

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they were already in Beijing,

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they were in Indonesia,

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they were in the Middle East,

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they were in Europe.

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Homo erectus traveled -

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I won't be surprised when
the newspaper finally announces

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that we have evidence
of Homo erectus in California

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because if they could walk to Beijing
in a short period of time,

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it was just a little hop,
skip, and a jump

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up across the Bering Strait
down into the New World.

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Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.

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But their abilities show that they
were capable of a tremendous amount.

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So now, it's not all good news,
there were some deficiencies.

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Homo erectus had the vocal
apparatus of a gorilla.

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They couldn't have made
all the sounds that we make.

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They would have had a range of sounds
more like what a gorilla could make.

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Is that a big deal when it comes
to language? Well, no, it isn't.

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There are many languages today
that have less than twelve sounds,

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here's one:

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(Speaking in Pirahã)

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That's one of the languages I've worked on
in the Amazon over the past 40 years,

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Pirahã, and it only has ten sounds
if you're a woman

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and eleven sounds if you're a man.

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And with eleven sounds, you can produce
a fully functioning human language.

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So was erectus capable of eleven sounds?

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Well, they didn't even need
to be capable of eleven sounds.

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You can type anything you can communicate
in English into your computer.

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You can type it in Microsoft Word
or whatever program that you use,

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and when you do that,
how many letters does a computer use?

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Well ultimately, a computer only uses
two letters, two sounds: 0 and 1,

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and with those sounds,
you can communicate anything.

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So erectus, theoretically,

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only needed to be able to make
two sounds to communicate.

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Our ancestors were the first
and only talking gorillas,

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with the anatomy that they had.

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Their brains not only were smaller,

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they were somewhat slower
than ours by the evidence,

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their childhood development
was faster than ours,

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which is a disadvantage cognitively

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because our children have
more time to develop -

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I think it's about 30 years now -

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(Laughter)

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and they are able to put into place
all sorts of cognitive mechanisms.

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When I tell this joke in college,
nobody laughs, but ...

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(Laughter)

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But we know.

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So Homo erectus had
advantages and disadvantages,

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but the most important thing
is that none of the disadvantages

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would've kept it from language
and the accomplishments we see.

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Right now, scientists are excavating
a Homo erectus village,

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about 750,000 years old,

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in Gesher Benot Ya'aqov
in modern-day Israel.

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And we find that this village
is organized hierarchically.

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There's a section of the village
for processing animal products,

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a section of the village
for processing plant products,

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another section of the village
where we find evidence of the habitation.

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So, they not only built villages,
they built them in a structured manner.

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So they were capable
of hierarchical thought,

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they were capable of planning,
they were capable of imagination.

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What makes language?

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What was lacking for them
to have language?

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A language is just,
in essence, two things:

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symbols and grammar.

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And how many symbols do you need,
and how much grammar do you need?

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What's a symbol, first of all?

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Charles Sanders Peirce,

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a philosopher from the United States
who lived over a hundred years ago,

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defined three kinds of signs:

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Indexes, which are signs

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that are physically connected
to what they represent.

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So, you go outside, you smell smoke,
you know there's a fire.

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Smoke is an index of fire.

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You see a footprint, that's an index.

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And the next sign -

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So, all animals need signs.

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Our five senses evolved for us
to be able to read indexes.

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Without indexes
and the ability to read them,

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we can't function in the world.

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The next kind of sign is an icon -

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there's no physical connection,
but there is a physical resemblance.

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The figure of Berekhat Ram, the Venus,
that I showed earlier, that is an icon.

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The Mona Lisa is an icon.

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The cross in Christianity started off
as an icon and has become a symbol.

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So you get this.

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So, what is a symbol then?

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The symbol is conventionally

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a sign that is conventionally
or culturally connected to its meaning.

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So, take the number four: f-o-u-r,
or hold up my fingers "four."

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That means what?

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It means a cardinality of four,
we have to keep talking in English,

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but four is a culturally-determined form

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and a culturally-determined meaning.

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Not all languages have mathematics.

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Piraha, for example,
doesn't have even the number one.

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There are no mathematical concepts
in that language whatsoever.

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So math is a cultural discovery,

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if not a cultural construct,

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and not everyone has math in that sense.

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So the symbols for math
are culturally determined.

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Symbols are culturally determined.

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The next thing we need
to have a language -

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and here's a fascinating fact -

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When Peirce said that indexes come first,
or more simple, and then icons,

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and then symbols,

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he inadvertently, indirectly predicted
exactly what we find

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in the archaeological record.

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So indexes all creatures have.

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Those are 5 billion years old
or however long life's been on Earth,

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closer to 4 billion.

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But, when did the first icon,

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the first image,

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appear in the archaeological record?

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Well, we have to go back 3 million years,

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which is not that far back,

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to Australopithecus africanus.

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And we find in a cave of Australopithecus,

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the Makapansgat cave
of Australopithecus in South Africa,

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a small, little two-inch by three-inch
stone called the Makapansgat pebble

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or the Makapansgat manuport
because it was carried to the cave,

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and some Australopithecus recognized
on this little stone a human face.

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It looks like the original
smiley face T-shirt.

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And Australopithecus
was fascinated by this.

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We know that because they
carried it from miles away

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and took it to their cave
and kept it there.

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Now, it's possible it was a coincidence,

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maybe they got
it stuck between their toes.

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But two inches by three inches

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is a bit big for even
Australopithecus toes.

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So they seem to have carried it there
because of what it represented.

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So first, we see icons -

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first, we see indexes,
then we see icons,

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and next we see symbols.

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So, what can a symbol be?

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Think of a shovel.

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Often when people talk about symbols
they think of abstract art,

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but abstract art
isn't necessary for symbols.

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Think of a shovel.

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A shovel is a tool,
but when we see a shovel,

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we think of labor,

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we think of blisters,

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we think of gardening,

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we think of our family -

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all sorts of memories.

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The shovel becomes a symbol
for a series of cultural values.

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The tools that erectus used
were easily understood as symbols.

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In the way that they were
taken care of, they represented it.

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In fact, we find a special
hand axe, Excalibur,

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a colored quartz hand axe
buried in an erectus burial site

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that indicates that they saw in this tool,

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as I'm saying, something symbolic.

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So, they had symbols,
they had the capability for symbols,

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they had planning,
they had hierarchical reasoning,

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they had ordered thought.

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So they needed a grammar.

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So what kinds
of grammars are there?

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Well, there is one popular
theory of grammar

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by someone I will not mention,

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but this particular theory of grammar
is a little more elaborate than we need.

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I have identified three kinds of grammar

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in my field research
over the last 40 years.

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One I'll call G1, the next one is G2,
and the last one, very originally, is G3.

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G1 grammars are just
grammars in linear order.

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We have examples of this in English:

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"You drink, you drive, you go to jail."

00:13:34.574 --> 00:13:37.086
"No shirt, no shoes, no service."

00:13:37.086 --> 00:13:38.990
It's just words in order.

00:13:38.990 --> 00:13:41.734
But the next kind
of grammar, a G2 grammar -

00:13:41.734 --> 00:13:42.773
and let me point out

00:13:42.773 --> 00:13:46.807
that there are modern languages,
such as Riau of Indonesia and Pirahã,

00:13:46.807 --> 00:13:50.728
in which serious psycholinguists
have argued that their grammars

00:13:50.728 --> 00:13:53.852
are this G1 type -
just words in linear order.

00:13:53.852 --> 00:13:56.652
A G2 grammar has hierarchy,

00:13:56.652 --> 00:13:59.597
so "If you drink and you drive,
then you go to jail."

00:13:59.907 --> 00:14:02.259
You take the words
and you make a larger sentence.

00:14:02.259 --> 00:14:05.630
And a G3 grammar has
hierarchy and recursion:

00:14:05.630 --> 00:14:08.167
"If you drink and drive
and know you shouldn't do that

00:14:08.167 --> 00:14:09.978
because your wife's going to get upset

00:14:09.978 --> 00:14:12.263
because her father told you
the last time you did

00:14:12.263 --> 00:14:14.558
he was never going
to give you bond money again,"

00:14:14.558 --> 00:14:16.489
and you can just keep on going.

00:14:16.489 --> 00:14:20.286
Those kinds of grammars are found
commonly in the world's languages,

00:14:20.286 --> 00:14:24.611
but you can express anything
from a G3 grammar in a G1 grammar;

00:14:24.611 --> 00:14:26.727
mathematically they're all of equal power.

00:14:26.727 --> 00:14:29.334
So, once you have symbols
and a G1 grammar

00:14:29.334 --> 00:14:32.045
you have language,
full-blown human language.

00:14:32.045 --> 00:14:33.633
We find those today.

00:14:33.633 --> 00:14:35.970
Was Homo erectus capable of that?

00:14:35.970 --> 00:14:37.110
Yes, they were.

00:14:37.110 --> 00:14:40.569
Did they show the kinds of communication,

00:14:40.569 --> 00:14:43.329
correction, cooperation, planning

00:14:43.329 --> 00:14:45.464
that would have required human language?

00:14:45.464 --> 00:14:46.927
Yes, they did.

00:14:47.077 --> 00:14:48.516
All animals communicate -

00:14:48.516 --> 00:14:50.852
there's not a single animal
in the animal species

00:14:50.852 --> 00:14:52.093
that doesn't communicate -

00:14:52.093 --> 00:14:56.105
but it still seems that only humans
communicate by means of language.

00:14:56.105 --> 00:15:00.171
Only humans have elaborate,
symbolic, grammatical systems

00:15:00.171 --> 00:15:02.321
that allow us to communicate.

00:15:02.321 --> 00:15:04.392
But is there anything
about what we've said

00:15:04.392 --> 00:15:09.200
that requires that grammars be a mutation?

00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:11.424
Or that grammars be innate?

00:15:11.424 --> 00:15:13.738
Or that grammars be an instinct?

00:15:14.008 --> 00:15:17.467
Does it seem any more than
that there is an instinct for chemistry,

00:15:17.467 --> 00:15:20.297
or an instinct for building cars,

00:15:20.297 --> 00:15:22.503
or an instinct for making burritos.

00:15:22.503 --> 00:15:25.229
I can find making burritos
in my brain somewhere,

00:15:25.229 --> 00:15:26.819
if you get into anatomy,

00:15:26.819 --> 00:15:29.938
you could identify where
burritos are made in my brain,

00:15:29.938 --> 00:15:31.092
where that knowledge is,

00:15:31.092 --> 00:15:32.725
but that doesn't mean it's innate.

00:15:32.725 --> 00:15:35.103
It just means that's where
it goes when I learn it,

00:15:35.103 --> 00:15:36.767
for a variety of reasons.

00:15:38.117 --> 00:15:40.768
So language, by all that we see,

00:15:40.768 --> 00:15:44.710
has been invented,
it has been developed over time.

00:15:44.996 --> 00:15:48.609
So as soon as a culture gets hold
of language, it starts to change it.

00:15:48.609 --> 00:15:50.739
Languages are always changing.

00:15:50.919 --> 00:15:54.352
Sometimes they become more elaborate,
sometimes they become simpler.

00:15:55.762 --> 00:15:59.646
Homo erectus started
the process of language

00:15:59.646 --> 00:16:02.757
through the accomplishments that they had,

00:16:02.757 --> 00:16:05.233
through what we know about
their reasoning abilities,

00:16:05.233 --> 00:16:09.054
and through the artifacts and villages

00:16:09.054 --> 00:16:13.870
and evidence of voyages that they left
in the archaeological record.

00:16:14.100 --> 00:16:17.017
Language started, if this is all correct -

00:16:17.017 --> 00:16:19.553
I urge upon you the view that it is -

00:16:19.553 --> 00:16:23.905
if this is all correct, language started
then 60,000 generations ago.

00:16:23.905 --> 00:16:25.823
It's one of the greatest breakthroughs,

00:16:25.823 --> 00:16:28.627
the beginning of the information
age for humanity,

00:16:28.627 --> 00:16:32.305
it enabled every other
accomplishment of our species.

00:16:32.305 --> 00:16:35.880
And if we go back to this guy,
we'll call him Johnny Erectus,

00:16:36.550 --> 00:16:39.669
in the sense of upright
as opposed to other senses.

00:16:39.669 --> 00:16:40.745
And he is

00:16:40.745 --> 00:16:42.502
(Laughter)

00:16:42.502 --> 00:16:47.527
the person who first spoke.

00:16:47.527 --> 00:16:50.487
The first person perhaps
who said to someone else,

00:16:50.487 --> 00:16:51.519
"I love you."

00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:53.495
Or who said, "Let's go."

00:16:53.495 --> 00:16:55.776
Or, "I want that."

00:16:57.286 --> 00:17:00.167
Imagine the possibilities
and the elaborations -

00:17:00.167 --> 00:17:02.484
60,000 generations of language.

00:17:02.484 --> 00:17:05.228
TED talks are an example

00:17:05.228 --> 00:17:08.867
of an attempt to harnass
the power of human language.

00:17:09.127 --> 00:17:11.934
There is nothing more powerful
on Earth than human language.

00:17:11.934 --> 00:17:14.075
We still don't understand
everything about it,

00:17:14.075 --> 00:17:17.397
but we know that it makes us who we are -

00:17:17.397 --> 00:17:20.848
the ability to speak
and communicate with one another.

00:17:20.954 --> 00:17:24.486
So, as you leave TED this evening,

00:17:24.486 --> 00:17:28.194
as you leave these talks and this day
that we've spent together,

00:17:28.364 --> 00:17:30.645
use language, talk, and listen,

00:17:30.645 --> 00:17:34.074
and appreciate the value
of this marvelous invention

00:17:34.074 --> 00:17:38.048
that these talking gorillas,
Homo erectus, our ancestors,

00:17:38.048 --> 00:17:39.998
the first humans to walk the Earth,

00:17:39.998 --> 00:17:41.026
gave us.

00:17:41.026 --> 00:17:42.060
Thank you.

00:17:42.060 --> 00:17:45.051
(Applause)