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James A. Mason — York University, Toronto
No person is an island.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
In the beginning was the word.
A word is worth a thousandth of a picture.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Keep an open mind.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Know thyself.
Prologue
This short paper is an outline for a longer project in which I am engaged. In its current form it is written for an audience of non-specialists who are interested in how we humans came to be so successful as a social species and what part our use of language has played in our success.
This outline is a result of decades of study of language and cognition. It is a synthesis that draws on ideas from many other people. In a longer version it will include acknowledgement of those sources, but for brevity in this version the sources have been omitted.
Summary
- The success of our human species is due to our functioning, not as individuals, but as social animals in supra-organisms, which are networks of people of any size from two to millions or billions. Each of us is involved…
