As Sir Peter Medawar said, ‘In human beings, exogenetic heredity — the transfer of information through non-genetic channels — has become more important for our biological success than anything programmed in DNA…’
We have already spoken of the day when, venturing beyond the communication of concrete and actual experience, Australanthropus or one of his kin managed to express the content of a subjective experience, of a personal “simulation”. On that day a new day was born, the world of ideas; and the new evolution, that of culture, became possible. From there on and for a long time, man’s physical evolution must have been intimately connected with and profoundly influenced by the development of the linguistic capacity, which so thoroughly changed the conditions of selection.
Modern man is the product of that evolutionary symbiosis. Viewed otherwise, he is incomprehensible, indecipherable. Every living being is also a fossil. Within it, all the way down to the microscopic structure of proteins, it bears the traces if not the stigmata of its ancestry. This is yet truer of man than any other animal species by dint of the dual evolution — physical and ideational — that he is heir to.
ChatGPT revised:
As Sir Peter Medawar pointed out, “In human beings, exogenetic heredity — the transfer of information through non-genetic channels — has become more important for our biological success than anything programmed in DNA” (Denton, 1993: 135).
Monod (1971/1997: 160) expands on this notion:
“We have already spoken of the day when, venturing beyond the communication of concrete and actual experience, Australopithecus or one of his kin managed to express the content of a subjective experience, of a personal 'simulation.' On that day, a new era was born: the world of ideas. From then on, the new evolution — that of culture — became possible. From this point, human physical evolution must have been intimately connected with and profoundly influenced by the development of linguistic capacity, which so thoroughly altered the conditions of selection. Modern humans are the product of this evolutionary symbiosis. Otherwise, they are incomprehensible, indecipherable. Every living being is a fossil in its own right. It carries, in its very structure — from the macroscopic down to the microscopic structure of proteins — the traces, if not the stigmata, of its ancestry. This is especially true for humans, who inherit both physical and ideational evolutionary legacies.”
Semiotic systems shape biological evolution by influencing the likelihood of individuals mating. For example, birds within the same species and region, but with different semiotic systems for courtship, tend to interbreed less frequently than birds with similar semiotic courtship systems. If the semiotic system is genetically inherited, this biasing of genetic replication remains within the biological evolution framework, aligning with sexual selection.
However, if the semiotic system is culturally passed on — learned through social interaction — the process of genetic replication is influenced by the interplay of two distinct evolutionary systems: the biological and the social-semiotic. In this case, gene selection is potentially shaped by a semiotic lineage that evolves in parallel with the biological lineage.
From this perspective, the speciation of the human lineage can be seen as a co-speciation of both biological and social-semiotic systems. That is, the emergence of language as a new social-semiotic lineage coincided with the biological emergence of humans as a distinct species. Humans did not simply develop language; rather, humans emerged alongside the emergence of language.
Footnotes:
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The Continuum of Semiotic Systems and Biology: Just as any symbiotic relationship exists on a continuum, semiotic systems can serve biological systems, and vice versa. One example of this reciprocal influence is martyrdom, where biological survival is influenced by the semiotic value of sacrifice.
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Biological-Semiotic Co-Evolution: The biological and semiotic co-evolution of humans is illustrated by the traditional importance of religion as a defining characteristic of group membership. This co-evolution also appears in how biological development and semiotic ontogenesis (the development of meaning-making systems) are intertwined, especially in relation to religion as an extension of ancient models of perceivable experience.
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Religious Identity and Semiotic Legacy: The co-speciation of humans and language might explain the elevated status of religious belief as a marker of identity. If religions are the descendants of ancestral semiotic models, they represent a critical continuation of human semiotic evolution.
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Language’s Role in Meaning Potential: The increased meaning potential and awareness that language provided not only enhanced humans’ ability to survive and reproduce but also expanded both the value of survival and reproduction and the awareness of that value.