Writing as Ratchet

Deacon (1997) talks about Icon to Index to Symbol as hierarchically arranged. These systems, he argues, can be independent of the hardware. Recent work at UCSB and elsewhere has confirmed some of his argument with regard to the evolution of phonology out of primate visual systems. In this case, the hardware may evolve to make use of software in a kind of mutual ratcheting. That is, speech systems may be parasitic on visual systems (See Givon et al., The Evolution of Language out of Pre-Language). Studies in literacy often state that literacy isn't biologically instantiated, that it relies on more ancient mechanisms to do its work that evolved for different purposes. However, if we follow Deacon we can see this in a different light. In the same way that scholars before Deacon argued that biological changes had to precede "language", and he gave us a plausible argument for the reverse, we may say the same about written language. We see a similar process with literacy. This would lead us to substantially rethink what it means for something to be cognitive.

We find evidence for the ratcheting effect in the early story of writing from about 8000 to 3000 BCE as told by Denise Schmandt-Basseret. In the proto-stage human beings sculpted figurines representing various gods and animals for ritual purpose. In the next stage tokens of basic geometric shapes representing simple food staples were made out of baked clay. Next more complex tokens emerge that represent complex staples. These tokens come to be sealed in clay envelopes for accounting purposes, and so are connected to the rise of agricultural surpluses and cities. Since there is no way to tell what is in the envelope, in the next stage someone came up with the idea to embed tokens on the outside of the clay to tell what was inside and further a system of marks was developed for the same purpose. This facilitates a transition from three dimensional objects to two dimensional. Up to this point there is a one to one correspondence between an object and token, so for example, three jars of grain are represented by three tokens in or on the envelope. A sign represents the token inside the envelope, which in turn represents a commodity/staple. In the next stage clay tablets replace clay envelopes and a sign mark on the tablet is used to represent a token, marked either with a stylus or the corresponding token. The first recordings of numerals occur with these tablets. In other words, there is no longer a one to one correspondence. Here the sign represents a concept, not the particular object in question, and we move to greater degrees of abstraction. In the next stage, which she does not discuss, signs go from representing objects or concepts (pictures) to representing the sound of first syllable of the word for the concept (acrophonic principle) and eventually signs represent sounds.