--- abstract: "It is pretty obvious that language and human consciousness entertain tight relations. We \r\ncould not really be conscious of ourselves without the possibility to say “I” or “me”. And language \r\nis a key contributor in our capability to identify ourselves as conscious entities existing in the \r\nenvironment. But the relations linking language and consciousness are complex and difficult to \r\nanalyze. Evolutionary origins of language are unknown as no fossil traces have been left by our \r\nancestors. Sciences of consciousness however begin to make available some possible evolutionary \r\nscenarios about the nature of human consciousness. \r\n We want here to propose a link between language and consciousness by using such an \r\nevolutionary scenario and also introduce the usage of a systemic approach to meaning generation. \r\nIn the first part of the presentation we will use an existing scenario about the evolutionary nature of \r\nself-consciousness where the development of language has a role (1). We will highlight this role in \r\norder to identify language and self-consciousness as inter-dependant in their nature through a \r\npossible common evolutionary origin. Self-consciousness and language could then be considered as \r\ntightly inter-dependant through a common build up of human nature during evolution. \r\n The scenario presents an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness as resulting of the \r\ncapability for pre-human primates to identify with their conspecifics (1, 2). The conspecifics are \r\nrepresented as existing in the environment, and such identification brought our pre-human ancestors \r\nto consider themselves as also existing in the environment. The scenario takes this event as being a \r\nfirst step for a conscious self-representation within pre-human primates, which progressively \r\nevolved toward our today human consciousness (3). \r\n But such identification with conspecifics was not for free at times of survival of the fittest. \r\nIdentifying with conspecifics meant for our pre-human ancestor to also identify with their sufferings \r\nor encountered dangers. These came in addition to the dangers or sufferings naturally encountered \r\nand created a significant anxiety increase (1). \r\n The resulting level of anxiety had to be limited. One possibility for that was to develop \r\npsychological or physical tools that could have reduced the risks of occurrences and developments \r\nof such dangers and sufferings. Among these tools is the performance of language which can \r\ninduces significant evolutionary advantages. We will propose a first scheme about how these \r\nevolutionary advantages could have reduced the dangers and sufferings encountered by our pre-\r\nhuman ancestors. We will also show how the development of language produced by itself a positive \r\nfeedback on the development of inter-subjectivity in the evolutionary scenario, and so participated \r\ndirectly to the development of human consciousness. \r\n Other evolutionary advantages have existed like the development of imitation and synergy \r\nthrough experience (4). Language played a role there also, and has to be taken into account. The \r\nsecond part of the presentation will propose the usage of an existing systemic approach to meaning \r\ngeneration in terms of constraints satisfaction (5, 6). Constraints for pre-human primates, ranging \r\nfrom a basic “stay alive” to highly elaborated “limit anxiety”, were source of multiple meaning \r\ngenerations in which language has played (and still plays) a key role. Several continuations will be \r\nproposed linked to the here above thread on a co-evolutions of language and human consciousness, \r\nas based on the evolutionary scenario. " altloc: [] chapter: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: 'October 11-12 th , 2010' conference: Symposium "The Status of Language in Human Cognition and Communication" confloc: 'Saint Petersburg, Russia' contact_email: ~ creators_id: - christophe.menant@hotmail.fr creators_name: - family: Menant given: Christophe honourific: Mr lineage: '' date: 2010-10-12 date_type: completed datestamp: 2010-10-26 18:22:21 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/70/67 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: 0 edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 7067 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/7067/1/C.Menant%2DSt.Petersburg%2DPresentation_20101016145653.pdf full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: unpub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: 'evolution, consciousness, intersubjectivity, anxiety, information, meaning, constraint, language, ' lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:57:46 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: 'symposium page: http://inyaz.herzen.spb.ru/symposium.html' number: ~ pagerange: ~ pubdom: TRUE publication: ~ publisher: ~ refereed: TRUE referencetext: "(1) TSC 2005 (Copenhagen, 2005): \"Evolution and Mirror Neurons. An Introduction to the Nature of Self-Consciousness\". Presentation: http://cogprints.org/4533/ \r\n(2) ASSC 10 (Oxford, 2006): \"Evolution of Representations and Intersubjectivity as sources of the Self. An Introduction to the Nature of Self-Consciousness\". Poster http://cogprints.org/4957/ \r\n(3) ASSC 12 (Taipei, 2008): \"Evolution as Connecting First-Person and Third-Person Perspectives of Consciousness\". Poster http://cogprints.org/6120/ \r\n(4) TSC 2010 (Tucson, 2010): \"Evolutionary Advantages of Intersubjectivity and Self-Consciousness through Improvements of Action Programs\". Poster: http://cogprints.org/6831/ \r\n(5) Short Paper: \"Introduction to a Systemic Theory of Meaning” http://crmenant.free.fr/ResUK/MGS.pdf \r\n(6) Book chapter (in press): \"Computation on Information, Meaning and Representations. An Evolutionary Approach\" \r\nhttp://www.idt.mdh.se/ECAP-2005/INFOCOMPBOOK/CHAPTERS/10-Menant.pdf " relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 32 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2010-10-26 18:22:21 subjects: - bio-ani-cog - bio-evo - cog-psy - ling-prag - phil-epist - phil-lang - phil-mind succeeds: ~ suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: 'Proposal for a shared evolutionary nature of language and consciousness ' type: confpaper userid: 2546 volume: ~