Human Universals (The Human Science Project)

June 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The following ‘Human Universals’ have been identified, and it is assumed that these traits form part of the context for any successful ‘Human Science’ project

abstraction in speech & thought
actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
aesthetics
affection expressed and felt
age grades
age statuses
age terms
ambivalence
anthropomorphization
anticipation
antonyms
attachment
baby talk
belief in supernatural/religion
beliefs, false
beliefs about death
beliefs about disease
beliefs about fortune and misfortune
binary cognitive distinctions
biological mother and social mother normally the same person
black (color term)
body adornment
childbirth customs
childcare
childhood fears
childhood fear of loud noises
childhood fear of strangers
choice making (choosing alternatives)
classification
classification of age
classification of behavioral propensities
classification of body parts
classification of colors
classification of fauna
classification of flora
classification of inner states
classification of kin
classification of sex
classification of space
classification of tools
classification of weather conditions
coalitions
collective identities
conflict
conflict, consultation to deal with
conflict, means of dealing with
conflict, mediation of
conjectural reasoning
containers
continua (ordering as cognitive pattern)
contrasting marked and nonmarked sememes (meaningful elements in language)
cooking
cooperation
cooperative labor
copulation normally conducted in privacy
corporate (perpetual) statuses
coyness display
critical learning periods
crying
cultural variability
culture
culture/nature distinction
customary greetings
daily routines
dance
death rituals
decision making
decision making, collective
differential valuations
directions, giving of
discrepancies between speech, thought, and action
dispersed groups
distinguishing right and wrong
diurnality
divination
division of labor
division of labor by age
division of labor by sex
dominance/submission
dreams
dream interpretation
economic inequalities
economic inequalities, consciousness of
emotions
empathy
entification (treating patterns and relations as things)
environment, adjustments to
envy
envy, symbolic means of coping with
ethnocentrism
etiquette
explanation
face (word for)
facial communication
facial expression of anger
facial expression of contempt
facial expression of disgust
facial expression of fear
facial expression of happiness
facial expression of surprise
facial expressions, masking/modifying of
fairness (equity), concept of
family (or household)
father and mother, separate kin terms for
fears
fear of death
fears, ability to overcome some
feasting
females do more direct childcare
figurative speech
fire
folklore
food preferences
food sharing
future, attempts to predict
generosity admired
gestures
gift giving
good and bad distinguished
gossip
government
grammar
group living
groups that are not based on family
habituation
hairstyles
hand (word for)
healing the sick (or attempting to)
hope
hospitality
husband older than wife on average
hygienic care
identity, collective
imagery
incest between mother and son unthinkable or tabooed
incest, prevention or avoidance
in-group distinguished from out-group(s)
in-group biases in favor of
inheritance rules
institutions (organized co-activities)
insulting
intention
interest in bioforms (living things or things that resemble them)
interpolation
interpreting behavior
intertwining (e.g., weaving)
jokes
judging others
kin, close distinguished from distant
kin groups
kin terms translatable by basic relations of procreation
kinship statuses
language
language employed to manipulate others
language employed to misinform or mislead
language is translatable
language not a simple reflection of reality
language, prestige from proficient use of
law (rights and obligations)
law (rules of membership)
leaders
lever
likes and dislikes
linguistic redundancy
logical notions
logical notion of “and”
logical notion of “equivalent”
logical notion of “general/particular”
logical notion of “not”
logical notion of “opposite”
logical notion of “part/whole”
logical notion of “same”
magic
magic to increase life
magic to sustain life
magic to win love
making comparisons
male and female and adult and child seen as having different natures
males dominate public/political realm
males engage in more coalitional violence
males more aggressive
males more prone to lethal violence
males more prone to theft
males, on average, travel greater distances over lifetime
manipulate social relations
marking at phonemic, syntactic, and lexical levels
marriage
materialism
meal times
mearning, most units of are non-universal
measuring
medicine
melody
memory
mental maps
mentalese
metaphor
metonym
mood- or consciousness-altering techniques and/or substances
moral sentiments
moral sentiments, limited effective range of
morphemes
mother normally has consort during child-rearing years
mourning
murder proscribed
music
music, children’s
music related in part to dance
music related in part to religious activity
music seen as art (a creation)
music, vocal
music, vocal, includes speech forms
musical redundancy
musical reptition
musical variation
myths
narrative
nomenclature (perhaps the same as classification)
nonbodily decorative art
normal distinguished from abnormal states
nouns
numerals (counting)
Oedipus complex
oligarchy (de facto)
one (numeral)
onomatopoeia
overestimating objectivity of thought
pain
past/present/future
person, concept of
personal names
phonemes
phonemes defined by set of minimally constrasting features
phonemes, merging of
phonemes, range from 10 to 70 in number
phonemic change, inevitability of
phonemic change, rules of
phonemic system
planning
planning for future
play
play to perfect skills
poetry/rhetoric
poetic line, uniform length range
poetic lines characterized by repetition and variation
poetic lines demarcated by pauses
polysemy (one word has several meanings)
possessive, intimate
possessive, loose
practice to improve skills
precedence, concept of (that’s how the leopard got its spots)
preference for own children and close kin (nepotism)
prestige inequalities
pretend play
pride
private inner life
promise
pronouns
pronouns, minimum two numbers
pronouns, minimum three persons
proper names
property
proverbs, sayings
proverbs, sayings - in mutually contradictory forms
psychological defense mechanisms
rape
rape proscribed
reciprocal exchanges (of labor, goods, or services)
reciprocity, negative (revenge, retaliation)
regocnition of individuals by face
redress of wrongs
resistance to abuse of poser, to dominance
rhythm
right-handedness as population norm
risk-taking
rites of passage
rituals
role and personality seen in dynamic interrlationship (i.e., departures from role can be explained in terms of individual personality)
sanctions
sanctions for crimes against the collectivity
sanctions include removal from the social unit
self-control
self distinguished from other
self as neither wholly passive nor wholly autonomous
self as subject and object
self-image, awareness of (concern for what others think)
self-image, manipulation of
self-image, wanted to be positive
self is responsible
semantics
semantic category of affecting things and people
semantic category of dimension
semantic category of giving
semantic category of location
semantic category of motion
semantic category of other physical properties
semantic components
semantic components, generation
semantic components, sex
sememes, commonly used ones are short, infrequently used ones are longer
senses unified
sex differences in spatial cognition and behavior
sex (gender) terminology is fundamentally binary
sex statuses
sexual attraction
sexual attractiveness
sexual jealousy
sexual modesty
sexual regulation
sexual regulation includes incest prevention
sexuality as focus of interest
shame
shelter
sickness and death seen as related
snakes, wariness around
social structure
socialization
socialization expected from senior kin
socialization includes toilet training
spear
special speech for special occasions
statuses and roles
statuses, ascribed and achieved
statuses distinguished from individuals
statuses on other than sex, age, or kinship bases
stinginess, disapproval of
stop/nonstop contrasts (in speech sounds)
succession
sucking wounds
sweets preferred
symbolism
symbolic speech
synesthetic metaphors
synonyms
taboos
tabooed foods
tabooed utterances
taxonomy
territoriality
thumb sucking
tickling
time
time, cyclicity of
tools
tool dependency
tool making
tools for cutting
tools to make tools
tools patterned culturally
tools, permament
tools for pounding
toys, playthings
trade
triangular awareness (assessinjg relationships among the self and two other people)
true and false (distinguished)
turn-taking
two (numeral)
tying material (i.e., something like string)
units of time
verbs
violence, some forms of proscribed
visiting
vocalic/nonvocalic contrasts in phonemes
vowel contrasts
weaning
weapons
weather control (attempts to)
white (color term)
world view

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, 2002, New York: Viking Press

Brown, D.E. 1991. Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill

Brown, D.E., 2000. Human universals and their implications. In N. Roughley (Ed.) Being humans: Anthropological universality and particularity in transdisplinary perspectives. New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Posted in Brown, D. E., Pinker, Stephen, Universals | No Comments »

Human Science of Audiences

June 27th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Given that an audience for a performance event is, in all likelihood, human, it is inevitable that this audience bring with them to the event those aspect of being human which are often referred to as ‘human universals’ (Brown, D.E. 1991), concepts, habits, and practices which seem to exist in all cultures and are part of the being of human. This collection of universals, aggregated into what might be thought of as a theorems of a particularly human science, forms the common sense with which they/we interpret and realise that event. Some of these human science theories which apply to a performance might include the following:

• The performance event is an abnormal state.
• The performance event is contained in space and time.
• Events occurring in the space and time of the performance are designed and/or intentional.
• Events occurring in the space which are proximate in space and/or time are connected.
• Any sufficiently complex entity in the space is capable of intentional action, particularly if that entity resembles a human being (anthropomorphism).

Posted in Brown, D. E., Performance, Theatre, Universals | No Comments »

Theory/Theatre Training

July 15th, 2006 Fred McVittie

One possible source of the sometimes uncomfortable relationship between theory and practice (specifically training for practice) in theatre is that training for practice utilises radically different (and possibly unfashionable) theories. Theory tends to be captivated by what Tooby and Cosmides refer to as the ’standard social science model’, in which the subject/person is a product of culture, with biology and evolutionary history playing little part in the construction of complex cultural behaviour. In this model the subject is constructed, fragmented, decentred, ‘hailed by a plethora of discourses’, mediated, screened out, and misrecognised even to itself. In stark contrast to this, the model of the subject, and their place in world, as implicit in the concepts and language of practical training, is vitalist, centered, dualist, a member of the ‘universal people’ (after D.E. Brown). It is interesting to note that no such disjunction exists in the training and education of athletes, who also require coaching to improve performance

Posted in Brown, D. E., Performance, Sport, Theatre, Theory, Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L., Training, Vitalism | No Comments »

Universal Physics

July 17th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The development of the science of physics, particularly over the last 400 years, can be seen as the triumph of a particular approach to knowledge gathering. This approach disregards the position of the human being within the scientific process, and attempts to construct an objective position outside of incarnate humanity from which to regard the world. In order to achieve objectivity it is necessary to consciously abandon our embodiment as ‘medium sized objects moving at medium speed’ (Dawkins 2003), and embrace an organised scepticism toward the data of the senses and the common sense which these senses produce. This in turn has required an increasing reliance on the (apparently) disembodied language of mathematics . Alongside this evacuation of the human being from its privileged position at the heart of physics is the corresponding development of a set of protocols for the objective verification and falsification of knowledge, enshrined in the idealisations of the scientific method. This project, the construction of Rational Physics through mathematisation and scientification, has been astonishingly successful, and its creations and discoveries are truly awe inspiring. However, the creation of new conscious knowledge does not necessarily mean the erasure of the old, and even though the findings of physics are as close to factual as we are likely to get, they still may not get us ‘where we live’. Science may have abandoned the body at some point in the late 16th Century, but as functioning humans we still take it around with us everywhere we go. Also, whilst our consciousness may be able to engage with the mathematical abstractions of quantum theory and dark energy, our non-conscious cognition (and actually much of our conscious, in the form of covert metaphors) is still working with the tools provided by an embodied evolution.

Within the system of beliefs, biases, misconceptions, common sense, and generalisations that Brown (1991) identified as ‘Human Universals’ there are a subset which refer specifically to matter, energy, and their interactions. In any formal, rational system of knowledge constructed through the protocols of science, this subset of knowledge would be called ‘physics’. In the context of human universals, which operates without scientific protocols but only with the innate and accumulated knowledge that comes with embodiment, this subset could be referred to as ‘Universal Physics”, a set of general principles and theories about the way the world works that is held by all cultures, and that is a result of a common biology and a common evolutionary history. While Rational Physics is the physics of the disembodied universe of atoms, quarks, membranes, black holes, and quanta. Universal Physics (UP) is the physics of dreams, intuition, emotion, art, God, and human frailty.

(Note: The “Universal Physics” referred to here is in no way connected to that proposed by Ethan Skyler http://www.physicsnews1.com/ or of the ‘commonsense science’ of Barnes, Bergman, Collins and Lucas http://www.commonsensescience.org/ )

Brown, D. E. (1991). Human Universals. New York, McGraw-Hill.
Dawkins, R. and L. Menon (2003). A devil’s chaplain: selected essays. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Posted in Brown, D. E., Dawkins, Richard, Embodiment, Evolution, History, Mathematics, Metaphor, Physics, Universals | No Comments »

Examples of Universal Physics

July 26th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The concept of a ‘Universal People’ put forward by Brown is based on the notion that all human beings share a common core of behaviours, perceptions, and concepts. This notion is derived from a large number of cross-cultural and anthropological studies and is widely assumed to result from a common evolutionary history and a shared embodiment, this embodiment also incorporating the organs of sense and cognition. Part of this shared universal cognition concerns commonly held interpretations of the behaviour of matter and energy; what in rational scientific terms would be called ‘physics’. Given this commonality, we should expect to see a set of correspondences across cultures, and possibly across times, between the models that different peoples use for this ‘universal physics’, and indeed this is what we find when we compare:

• The pre-Newtonian paradigm in Western hermetic science
• The paradigm informing Chinese Traditional Medicine
• The paradigm implied by ‘Naive Physics’

Posted in Brown, D. E., Embodiment, Evolution, Naive Physics, Physics, Universals | No Comments »

Universal Feeling

December 1st, 2006 Fred McVittie

Some of the traits, affordances, abilities, and tendencies that humans display are not particular to a single individual, or to a specific culture, but are found in all cultures, and in most, if not all, individuals within those cultures. These are what Brown referred to as ‘Human Universals’. It is likely that the universality of these traits stems from combination of shared environmental conditions, shared evolutionary history, and a shared embodiment, (these factors are, of course, closely related). Given also that for most of that history we have been without consciousness, it seems likely that much of our non-conscious processing is similarly universal. These universals would not be something we are aware of, and may not have an overt visibility within culture, but would exist at the level of emotions, feelings, intuitions, and biases. Alternatively, it is similarly likely that there are responses, feelings, and behaviours which are part of all human nature, and which may be triggered by similar stimuli.

Posted in Affordance, Brown, D. E., Evolution, Universals | No Comments »