%A Stevan Harnad
%T From Sensorimotor Praxis and Pantomine to Symbolic Representations
%X What lies on the two sides of the linguistic divide is fairly clear: On one side, you have organisms
     buffeted about to varying degrees, depending on their degree of autonomy and plasticity, by the states of affairs
     in the world they live in. On the other side, you have organisms capable of describing and explaining the states
     of affairs in the world they live in. Language is what distinguishes one side from the other. How did we get here
     from there? In principle, one can tell a seamless story about how inborn, involuntary communicative signals and
     voluntary instrumental praxis could have been shaped gradually, through feedback from their consequences,
     first into analog pantomime with communicative intent, and then into arbitrary category names combined into
     all-powerful, truth-value-bearing propositions, freed from the iconic "shape" of their referents and able to tell all.
     The attendant increase in speed and scope in acquiring and sharing information can be demonstrated in simple
     artificial life simulations that place the old and new means into direct competition: Symbolic theft always beats
     sensorimotor toil, and the strategy is evolutionarily stable, as long as the bottom-level categories are grounded in
     sensorimotor toil.
%D 2000
%K language evolution, symbolic grounding, iconicity, imitation, iconicity, propositions
%P 118-125
%L cogprints1619

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