Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:38 AM UTC

card_zero wrote: post #42

shimman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comment, I remember something similar about how researchers thought hairstyles depicted in paintings or statues were unrealistic but it wasn't until a hairstylist pointed out that you can sew the hair together: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-woman-is-a-ha... I've also heard similar stories about people working with leather recognizing some set of artifacts as being more useful for work rat…

Ever tried carving a regular pattern, such as XXXXXXX, in a piece of wood? The blade keeps getting stuck on the wrong course, the angle deviates from vertical, you have to retry strokes and they don't land in the same place the second time. If the work piece is small your accuracy goes down. In this case they're carving bone, which may be easier, but the tool is a tiny piece of flint held between fingers. So then ins…

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 6:44 AM UTC

jgtrosh wrote: post #49

dhosek wrote: post #45

I remember in my literary theory class, one of the theorists made the (deliberately) absurd claim that writing preceded speech. Reading this, and I wonder if he was correct (as an aside, I tend to wander into the weeds in language articles on Wikipedia as I find myself increasingly curious about language evolution and I always wonder whether the different language families are “merely” a result of linguistic drift ov…

Your instinctive reaction matches with scientific consensus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing > Each historical invention of writing emerged from systems of proto-writing that used ideographic and mnemonic symbols but were not capable of fully recording spoken language. True writing, where the content of linguistic utterances can be accurately reconstructed by later readers, is a later development. As…

Post by lelanthran » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 7:11 AM UTC

citizenpaul wrote: post #19

iberator wrote: post #17

Ha! And someone today at HN laughed at the research of monkeys playing with crystals... Maybe one day we could communicate with monkeys with marbles and crystals and stuff as SIGN language. Imagine monkey soldiers becoming reality in AI WARS.

Sorry to be the wet blanket. However research on monkeys/apes has for the most part proven that their intelligence is at a dead end and never can progress past what is basically around human 2yo level.

Post by singularity2001 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 8:03 AM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #22

The X's on the animal forms (Fig. 1B) ... isn't that likely to be "hit here" type markings, for hunting reference? Shoulder, side, stomach... surprised this wasn't really touched on in the paper, since it seems really likely. Though, the paper doesn't seem to care so much about the actual meanings, seemingly just narrowing down the number of possible interpretations /shrug

Post by JR1427 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 8:37 AM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #22

The X's on the animal forms (Fig. 1B) ... isn't that likely to be "hit here" type markings, for hunting reference? Shoulder, side, stomach... surprised this wasn't really touched on in the paper, since it seems really likely. Though, the paper doesn't seem to care so much about the actual meanings, seemingly just narrowing down the number of possible interpretations /shrug