Language as a Transformative Technology and Talking to Aliens

I recently revisited an old blog post that I’d written on Blogger in November of 2011. In the post, I shared what was then a recent and intriguing TED talk by Mark Pagel entitled How language transformed humanity.

While the TED talk from Pagel is no longer recent (at least not in the scope of the modern internet), it was fun to jump back and rewatch his talk and to revisit some of the ideas it stimulated within me when it comes to thinking about the power of language: how our language is a special kind of technology that we use for social learning, the potential that language development might have been one of the key factors (if not the single most important factor) for human civilization to arise, and whether the tool of language that we’ve developed is only a small sample of the possible range of linguistic developments among biospheres in the cosmos.

“Language evolved to solve the crisis of visual theft”

Mark Pagel is an evolutionary theorist and professor at the University of Reading. His work has explored how evolutionary principles shape the development and diversification of languages, human behavior, and social structures. He has contributed significantly to the understanding of cultural evolution and its parallels with biological evolution, arguing that culture serves as humanity's “second inheritance system” (following after our genes and transmission of information through heredity). Pagel’s studies on linguistic diversity have examined the adaptive and cooperative roles of language in human societies as well as its impact on civilizational development.

Pagel’s 2011 TED talk briefly explores the evolutionary origins and transformative power of language as a social technology.

In the talk, Pagel argues that language is “a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people's minds”—enabling us to share ideas, cooperate, and build civilizations. He explains how language (may have) evolved to resolve the evolutionary dilemma of "visual theft," where social learning allowed individuals to benefit from others' efforts without contributing knowledge themselves.

Language, Pagel contends, enabled humans to exchange ideas, foster cooperation, and create the vast cumulative culture that defines our species. He further examines the dual role of language in promoting collaboration while simultaneously isolating groups, as seen in the diversity of human languages that act as barriers to the free exchange of ideas and resources (for a fun example, those of us who grew up connected to the urban subculture anywhere near Philly in 1990s might recall well the use of the word jawn as both a connector as well as a way to know who wasn’t part of the group).

Pagel concludes his TED talk with a provocative idea—a suggestion that humanity’s globalized future might lead to a convergence toward a single universal language to enhance cooperation and solve the challenges of linguistic fragmentation.

While Pagel makes some intriguing arguments for how we can view language as a technology and for the implications of language as a social learning tool in our history, certainly there are some issues with his presentation. His talk presents common language as a unifying force that generally fosters cooperation and cumulative culture, but some could argue that his view oversimplifies the complexities of linguistic diversity and its benefits. For instance, linguists like David Crystal emphasize that linguistic diversity is vital for preserving human heritage similar to the value of preserving biodiversity in nature, and the UN Institute for Environment and Human Security states that “Multilingualism and linguistic diversity help sensitize people in recognizing cultural bias and different cultural perspectives.” More modern research might also support or contend with Pagel’s suggestion that our language acquisition started only 200,000 years ago with the rise of Homo sapiens—some may place the beginnings of language far earlier (perhaps at the rise of the Homo genus some 2 million years ago) or even far later (perhaps 50,000 to 70,000 years ago).

I think one of the larger issues in Pagel’s TED talk is his presentation of language as exclusive to humans. Certainly many others may argue that the forms of communication that other organisms have—whale song, bird calls, visual queues, etc.—are rather simple compared to what our language is now, but certainly when we first started our own linguistic developments they were also rather simple. But, honestly, so much modern research has shown that a wide variety of non-human animals also possess communicative complexity—heck, we still don’t really know what other animals are really saying to each other (though that could change soon with the help of AI). On top of that, Pagel's suggestion that chimpanzees cannot “ape” the actions they observe is certainly a claim that might make some anthropologists bristle. Social learning through communication is not entirely unique to humans, and that was established well before 2011.

Though I don’t entirely agree with Pagel’s arguments, coming back and watching this TED talk still raises broader questions in my mind:

Can we argue that language is the oldest human technology?

Is language—as we define it—a prerequisite for intelligent life to build civilizations?

What will the future of our language(s) look like?

For paid subscribers, I have a longer essay below exploring the nature of language as a technology, one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs, how wildly different alien languages may be (like in the film Arrival), and what the alien future of language could be for us as well.