At the 2012 annual neuroscience banquet, we had the privilege of hearing from Gary Marcus. In his talk, he focused on drawing a connection between two of his most popular books: Kluge and Guitar Zero. His argument was that music and language seem to be connected in an evolutionary manner but in different ways.
First, he discussed the evolution of language. He began by stating two crucial questions that must be answered. First, why did something evolve? And second, How did something evolve? This compares and contrasts function with structure. It seems that language evolved in order to attract mates and have an advantage in social cohesion. Next, Marcus delved into how language evolved. He refers to language as a "Kluge" because it is a clumsy solution to get the job done, but not ideally. Language allows us to communicate to one another, but the English language does not always make sense. Why do we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway? Marcus attributes this to "evolutionary inertia". Basically once language started moving in a particular direction, it continued on in that direction. It is simply a matter of probability.
Next, Marcus continued by relating these same precepts to music. He asks this vital question: Has evolution left its fingerprints on music? To answer this question, he first turned to "exomusicology", which seeks to discover what other species favor about music. He begins by explaining that music could be a sexual-selective trait used to attract mates, but it is not the only way to attract mates. Marcus then continues by drawing the differences between language and music in an evolutionary sense. He states that language and music are both infinite combinatorial systems, but language is learned differently and earlier. In fact, Marcus argues that language is learned naturally in a sort of innate sense. He asserts that language is required to be evolutionary successful, but music is not. Language is instinctual while music is a technologically acquired skill that does not directly evolve. Music is dependent on the structure of the mind, whereas language seems to already by built into the brain's framework.
He concluded by saying that language and music do have the same structure built on physical requirements, functional pressures, and evolutionary inertia, but differ by one distinct thing: culture. Music is dependent on culture, whereas language is not. Music is simply a technology that fits into the culture of that time, whereas language is much more universal and transcends culture.
Furthermore, Gary Marcus' talk about the evolutionary history of language and music was very fascinating. It was a privilege to hear him speak and it was interesting to see him connect his two books together and shed some light on the evolutionary origins of music and language.
It is interesting that Gary Marcus would conclude that music is dependent on culture but language is not. I would say that language changes with culture just as music does. We do not speak the same way as our Founding Fathers in the mid 1700's. Each generation creates new meanings to words, or even makes up completely new words. To me it seems that as culture changes so does language. Perhaps music changes more dramatically, but it is difficult for me to understand how language has not changed with culture.
ReplyDelete