[MD] The Unsocialised Ape

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ian]
I just don't see Keller referenced much in the many brain development / 
mental development texts I have read in recent years.)

[Arlo]
I suspect a large part of that is the absence of corresponding brain 
imaging that was not available in her day. If one comes at the question 
from a reductionist perspective, there is little Keller can offer, since 
her own words can be discounted as data. But I would suppose, that if 
the fossilization that you propose is there, there would have been 
*some* social-intellectual development on her end before the moment of 
her social awakening.

[Ian]
Clearly we wouldn't expect to see social patterns such as those 
normalised in "civilised" society - but as soon as there is any 
linguistic / symbolic communication involving "other" separate from 
"self" - I'd expect there to be social level patterns emerging.

[Arlo]
Well, sure, animals have a sense of boundedness. I read an article once 
on brain damaged rats that self-canabilized, so I'd wager that some 
sense of me/not-me can be attributed to neural stimuli and biological 
experience. Since we agree (I think) that we see social patterns 
emerging among certain animal species (correlating with certain levels 
of complex neurology), I'd have no doubt that man's bio-neurology would 
support certain behaviors I'd call proto-social or whatnot; perhaps like 
the chimp who nurtured a sick bird. Even a pack of wolves (IMHO) 
evidences social behavior, so I'd expect our desert-island human, upon 
being adopted by these wolves, to rise to the social level of those same 
wolves.

[Ian]
I'm only really disagreeing about how neatly delineated the bio to 
social boundary might (not) be ..

[Arlo]
I don't think its neatly delineated at all. I've long said the most 
interesting points to me emerge as one zooms in on the boundaries. Was 
it Krimel who likened them to fractals? This is why I find Tomasello so 
interesting and enlightening, his work is (from a MOQ perspective) a 
lens on that biological-social boundary.

But I still don't accept the genetic imprinting (my words) of social and 
intellectual patterns upon the species. This really is, despite your not 
liking his work, Chomsky's main foundation. Humans are genetically 
predisposed to spontaneously develop language and intellect. It is fully 
reductionist. And from a MOQ perspective, it seeks to eliminate the 
social level entirely and make the hierarchy like: inorganic, 
biological, intellectual... with "social" being a field of some sort in 
which this just happens to occur (and often something to be resisted and 
overcome).

You still didn't explain your thoughts on the nature of "fossilization", 
whether the genetic imprinting (my words) is culturally dependent, or 
species-similar, and if, just like we can with the genes for hair-color 
and gender, we can (or could) do genetic studies to decode which genes 
stand for what social/intellectual patterns?