social context,presumably through further development of the preex-
isting ability to recombine vocal elements into new patterns.This would
open new channels for development of vocal and cognitive capacities rel-
evant not only to the origins of language,but presumably to the origins
of music as well.Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to the Foundation for Biomusicology and Acoustic
Ethology for giving me the opportunity to participate in the first Flo-
rentine Workshop in Biomusicology.I am also grateful to John Maynard
Smith for his suggestions and to Björn Merker for his helpful comments
on an earlier version of this chapter.Note
1.From a systems-organizational point of view,the major transitions of evolution—the
emergence of prokaryotic cells,composite or eukaryotic cells,multicellular organisms,and
sociality—are manifested as the emergence of higher-level systems.These higher-level
systems are also subject to evolution;that is,they evolve as systems from a lower aggre-
gational state through the inner differentiation of their components toward a higher level
of organization.This latter state can be achieved only if the system is dependent on
processes mediated by system-specific structures.That is,they are processes of structures
without independent existence outside the given system (e.g.,ribosomes in cells,organs in
animals,communicative signals in animal societies).
Although every system exists and works by the presence and operations of its con-
stituents,networks of mutual interactions of constituents establish system characteristics
that are irreducible to characteristics of the constituents,and this,of course,includes social-
ity.The result is that the system as a whole acquires a life of its own,as it were.The degree
of this autonomy,that is,the extent to which the system level integrates the component
level,is dependent on the evolutionary state of the system.However,the integrational
process,like other evolutionary processes,does not embody a linear continuum.For
example,evolution of sociality in insects or in avian-mammalian lineages are alternative
solutions.In terms of higher levels of integrity,the final state of the evolution of sociality
as a system among mammals is represented only by human sociality established by the
existence of culture,the reified form of all human action and interaction.This is what gives
the human social system its radical particularity.
Emergence of new qualities pertains not only to the system as a whole but to its com-
ponents as well.The higher-level,comprehending,system provides special possibilities as
well as limitations for the evolutionary pathways of its components.In this downward direc-
tion of determination,sociality plays a preeminent (but naturally not exclusive) role in the
evolution of mental capacities of individuals.References
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