Already mentioned in previous pages, the concept of scale is an
important parameter in human development. At this point, it is
useful to elaborate on the notion since I consider scale to be
critical in explaining major transitions in human pragmatics.
The progression from pre-word to notation, and in our days from
literacy to illiteracy is paralleled by the progression of
scale. Numbers as such-how many people in a given area, how many
people interacting in a particular practical experience, the
longevity of people under given circumstances, the mortality
rate, family size-are almost meaningless. Only when relations
among numbers and circumstances can be established is some
meaningful inference possible. Scale is the expression of
relations.
A crude scale of life and death is remote from underlying
adaptive strategies as these are embodied in practical
experiences of self-constitution. Knowledge regarding biological
mechanisms, such as knowledge of health or disease, supports
efforts to derive models for various circumstances of life, as
humans project their biological reality into the reality of
interactions with the outside world. We know, for instance, that
when the scale of human activity progressed to include
domesticated animals, some animal diseases affecting human life
and work were transmitted to humans. Domestication of animals, a
very early practical experience, brought humans closer to them
for longer times, thus facilitating what is called a change of
host for agents of such diseases. The common cold seems to have
been acquired from horses, influenza from pigs, smallpox from
cattle. We also know that over time, infectious diseases affect
populations that are both relatively large and stationary. The
examples usually given are yellow fever or malaria and measles
(the latter probably also transported from swine, where the
disease is caused by the larva of the tapeworm from which the
word measles is derived). Sometimes the inference is made from
information on groups that until recently were, or still are,
involved in practical experiences similar to those of remote
stages in human history, as are the tribes of the Amazon rain
forest. Isolated hunter- gatherers and populations that still
forage (the !Kung San, Hadza, Pygmies) replay adaptive
strategies that otherwise would be beyond our understanding.
Statistical data derived from observations help improve models
based only on our knowledge about biological mechanisms.
The notion of scale involves these considerations insofar as it
tells us that life expectancy in different pragmatic frameworks
varies drastically. The less than 30-year life expectancy
(associated with high infant mortality, diseases, and dangers in
the natural environment) explains the relatively stationary
population of hunter-gatherers. Orders of magnitude of 20 years
higher were achieved in what are called settled modes of life
existing before the rise of cities (occurring at different times
in Asia Minor, North Africa, the Far East, South America, and
Europe). The praxis of agriculture resulted in diversified
resources and is connected to the dynamics of a lower death rate,
a higher birth rate, and changes in anatomy (e.g., increased
height).
The hypotheses advanced by modern researchers of ancestral
language families concerning the relation between their
diffusion over large territories and the expanding agricultural
populations is of special interest here. The so-called Neolithic
Revolution brought about food production in some communities of
people as opposed to reliance on searching, finding, catching or
trapping (as with foragers and hunters). As conditions favored
an increase in population, the nature of the relations among
individuals and groups of individuals changed due to force of
number. Groups broke away from the main tribe in order to
acquire a living environment with less competition for resources.
Alternatively, pragmatic requirements led to situations in which
the number of people in a given area increased. With this
increase, the nature of their relations became more complex.
What is of interest here is the direction of change and the
interplay of the many variables involved in it. Definitely, one
wants to know how scale and changes in practical experiences are
related. Does a discovery or invention predate a change in
scale, or is the new scale a result of it or of several related
phenomena? Polygenetic explanations point to the many variables
that affect developments as complex as those leading to
discoveries of human practical experiences that result in
increased populations and diversified pragmatic interactions.
The major families of languages are associated, as
archaeological and linguistic data prove, with places where the
new pragmatic context of agriculture was established. One well
documented example is that of two areas in China: the Yellow
River Basin, where foxtail millet is documented, and the Yangtzi
River Basin, where rice was domesticated. The Austronesian
languages spread from these areas over thousands of miles
beyond. We have here an interesting correlation, even if only
summarily illustrated, between the nature of human experience,
the scale that makes it possible, and the spread of language.
Similar research bears evidence from the area called New Guinea,
where cultivation of taro tubers is identified with speakers of
the Papuan languages, covering large areas of territory as they
searched for suitable land and encountered the opposition of
foragers.
Natural abilities (such as yelling, throwing, running, plucking,
breaking, bending) dominated a humankind constituted in groups
and communities of reduced scale. Abilities other than natural,
such as planting, cooking, herding, singing, and using tools,
emerge consciously, in knowledge of the cause, when the change of
scale in population and effort required efficiency levels
relative to the community, impossible to achieve at the natural
level. Such abilities developed very quickly. They led to the
diversified means generated in practical experiences involving
elements of planning (as rudimentary as it was at its
beginning), reductionist strategies of survival and well-being
(break a bigger problem into smaller parts, what will become the
divide-and-conquer strategy), and coalition building. These
involved acts of substitution, insertion, and omission, and
continued with combinations of these at progressively higher
levels. At a certain scale of human activity, the experience of
work and the cognitive experience of storing information
pertinent to work differentiated.
Do structural changes bring about a new scale, or does scale
effect structural changes? The process is complex in the sense
that the underlying structure of human activity is adapted to
exigencies of survival fine tuned to the many factors influencing
both individual and communal experiences. That scale and
underlying structure are not independent results from the fact
that possibilities as well as needs are reflected in scale. More
individuals, with complementary skills, have a better chance to
succeed in practical endeavors of increased complexity. Their
needs increase, too, since these individuals bring into the
experience not only their person, but also commitments outside
the experience. The underlying structure embodies elements
characteristic of the human endowment-itself bound to change as
the individual is challenged by new circumstances of life-and
elements characteristic of the nature of human relations,
affecting and being affected by scale. Dynamic tensions between
scale and the elements defining the underlying structure lead to
changes in the pragmatic framework. Language development is just
one example of such changes. Articulated speech emerged in the
context of initial agricultural praxis as an extension of
communication means used in hunting and food gathering. Notation
and more advanced tools emerged at a later juncture. Crafts
resulted from practical experiences made possible by such tools
as work started to become specialized. Writing was made possible
by the cognitive experiences of notation and reading (no matter
how primitive the reading was). Writing emerged as practical
human constitution extended to trade, to beyond the
here-and-now and beyond co-presence. The underlying structure of
literacy was well suited to the sequentiality characteristic of
practical experiences, expression of dependencies, and
deterministic processes.
As already stated, successive forms of communication came about
when the scale of interaction among humans expanded from one to
several to many. Literacy corresponded to a qualitatively
different moment. If language can be associated with the human
scale characteristic of the transition from hunting and foraging
for food to producing it by means of agriculture, literacy can
be associated with the next level of human
interconditioning-production of means of production. One can use
here the metaphor of critical mass or threshold, not to
overwrite scale, but to define a value, a level of complexity,
or a new attractor (as this is called in chaos theory). Critical
mass defines a lower threshold-until this value, interaction was
still optimally carried out by means such as referential signs,
representations based on likeness, or by speech. At the lower
threshold, individuals and the groups they belong to can still
identify themselves coherently. But a certain instability is
noticeable: the same signs do not express similar or equivalent
experiences. In this respect, critical mass refers to number or
amount (of people, resources they share, interactions they are
involved in, etc.) and to quality (differences in the result of
the effort of self-constitution). Former means are rendered
inadequate by practical experiences of a different nature. New
strategies for dealing with inadequacies result from the
experience itself, as the optimization of the sign systems
involved (signals, speech, notation, writing) result from the
same. Notation became necessary when the information to be
stored (inventories, myths, genealogies) became more than what
oral transmission could efficiently handle. Critical mass
explains why some cultures never developed literacy, as well as
why a dominant literacy proves inadequate in our days.