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Mayr and Darwin were adamant about all species being unique. It’s sort of like the confusion I felt when I found out that every kid’s mother told them they were special. But, if we’re all special then none of us are special! One way that species are unique is that they have found the right (less wrong) methods to ensure adaptation to their environment. This special variability then is not a cause of something within them, but something acting on them. It’s cold so I grow some fur. I need to dangle from the trees so my thumb shifts position. I need to say something so I speak. What is it that I need to say?

Before language, there must have been a great refinement and expansion of memory. They say that children don’t remember anything before they are two years old. Interestingly, this is also when they begin to speak simple sentences. Our ability to speak to one another and therefore learn from one another greatly enhances our chances of survival. I have been toying with the idea of what the first memory would have been, and if the being having it was blown away, or if she just got a headache. Also, what was the first word spoken? The speaker would have had to teach her companions what she was talking about- The birth of the first story. With everyone thinking and speaking and collaborating knowledge and memory and language must have expanded exponentially.

Other thoughts:
I have been hung up on the assertion that scientists are trying to make sense of our reality, or that they are trying to explain our reality. This is exactly what I would say that artists and writers are doing as well. So now I have the bridge between the sciences and the humanities that I was looking for.

I don’t think that the shift from Vulgar Latin to the wide variety of romance languages today is part of the evolutionary process- unless modern day languages are more useful for survival, or they can express something that older languages were incapable of expressing.

Danielle Joseph