How humans developed the concept of Yesterday, more or less.
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So I was watching this on YouTube the other day. It's a video about the origins of language and how we went from sounds and grunts, to formal language.
An idea that really struck me was that language sits above what we speak or write. The idea that what we speak of write are just they way we choose to express that language, which in itself is the set of rules that govern the way we communicate with each other.
This brought me to another question: When did we evolve the concept of time, the concept of yesterday, of tomorrow.
Turns out there's a whole bunch of stuff that many smart people have already come up with trying to explain that evolution.
We had to develop for example, the ability to tell now from before now, and here from where I was before now. Its actually very interesting.
And that's when it came to me with astounding clarity.
I picture our cave man, we'll call him Ruck, coming in from a hard day of hunting and gathering with a spear in one hand and the leg of some giant prehistoric bird on his shoulder.
As he drops the monster leg on the floor, his cave wife, whom well call Karen, points to the fire place and says,
"Karen need wood fire"
Ruck, a bit upset because Karen didn't even ask about his day, and he didn't get to tell her about that jerk, Tran who keeps jumping in line and how if he was not the chiefs nephew he'd tell him a thing or two, sighed and said,
"Ruck get wood for fire"
As if she was hit by lightning, Karen had the biggest epiphany of her life when, after a couple of seconds she turned to her cave husband and said,
"Ruck say he get wood yesterday. Ruck is going to say same tomorrow and Karen gets wood for fire.
Karen not happy."
She then turned around and walked away leaving Ruck standing there not understanding what had just happened, but sure that he , again, had somehow messed up and it was going to take him at least three days to fix whatever it was that he had done wrong.
And there you have it folks, in the evolution of human language, the huge concept of yesterday and tomorrow came about because the first Karen couldn't wait one more gosh darned day for firewood.
So I was watching this on YouTube the other day. It's a video about the origins of language and how we went from sounds and grunts, to formal language.
An idea that really struck me was that language sits above what we speak or write. The idea that what we speak of write are just they way we choose to express that language, which in itself is the set of rules that govern the way we communicate with each other.
This brought me to another question: When did we evolve the concept of time, the concept of yesterday, of tomorrow.
Turns out there's a whole bunch of stuff that many smart people have already come up with trying to explain that evolution.
We had to develop for example, the ability to tell now from before now, and here from where I was before now. Its actually very interesting.
And that's when it came to me with astounding clarity.
I picture our cave man, we'll call him Ruck, coming in from a hard day of hunting and gathering with a spear in one hand and the leg of some giant prehistoric bird on his shoulder.
As he drops the monster leg on the floor, his cave wife, whom well call Karen, points to the fire place and says,
"Karen need wood fire"
Ruck, a bit upset because Karen didn't even ask about his day, and he didn't get to tell her about that jerk, Tran who keeps jumping in line and how if he was not the chiefs nephew he'd tell him a thing or two, sighed and said,
"Ruck get wood for fire"
As if she was hit by lightning, Karen had the biggest epiphany of her life when, after a couple of seconds she turned to her cave husband and said,
"Ruck say he get wood yesterday. Ruck is going to say same tomorrow and Karen gets wood for fire.
Karen not happy."
She then turned around and walked away leaving Ruck standing there not understanding what had just happened, but sure that he , again, had somehow messed up and it was going to take him at least three days to fix whatever it was that he had done wrong.
And there you have it folks, in the evolution of human language, the huge concept of yesterday and tomorrow came about because the first Karen couldn't wait one more gosh darned day for firewood.
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