[percy-l] The Naked Ape's Triadic Threshold

John Harvey johnharvey at earthlink.net
Fri Apr 27 08:41:32 EDT 2007


Robert, List,

Great post! I am fascinated by the possibility that we can identify this event.

This fascination is based on my beliefs that:

1. Percy's Fateful Rift is a major stumbling block to understanding language;
2. Forward motion in the social sciences depends on understanding 
language; and
3. Progress in these subjects is hampered by our limited 
understanding of the triadic component of language.

Therefore, anything which focuses attention on the triadic component 
of language is worthy of more study.

At 11:13 PM 4/26/2007 -0400, Robert G. Eckert wrote:
>Newsweek recently had an article on human evolution in which was 
>argued that human beings became hairless about 110,000 years ago. 
>This was based on the DNA analysis of hair lice becoming body lice.
>
>The earliest known symbol use, last I checked into this stuff, was 
>beads found in East Africa--the Blombos Cave, dating from some 90,000 years.
>
>To my thinking, the point at which human beings crossed the triadic 
>threshold is looking to be about 100,000 years ago.
>
>Being that it was a qualitative, punctual, evolutionary event, it 
>must have occured at a specific time and place.
>
>Searching for this Adam Event is now involving lice DNA.

How does Percy explicitly suggest that symbol use is related to "the 
triadic threshold?" Or, are there secondary sources for this 
connection? In either case, I would appreciate knowing where I can 
get more information on these ideas.

>This makes me think of Percy's siggest to triangulate--use many 
>perspectives to locate a point.
>
>If it did occur, more evidence is out there.

Robert has suggested that the advent of symbol use evidenced by beads 
found in the Blombos Cave and the evolution of hair lice to body lice 
are markers on this trail. Have other members on this list any 
thoughts about what other tiail markers might be?

Respecfully,

John Harvey


"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level 
of thinking we were at when we created them." -Albert Einstein





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