Syntax Evolution: Problems and Recursion
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Why did only we humans evolve Turing completeness? Turing completeness is the maximum computing power, and we are Turing complete because we can calculate whatever any Turing machine can compute. Thus we can learn any natural or artificial language, and it seems that no other species can, so we are the only Turing complete species. The evolutionary advantage of Turing completeness is full problem solving, and not syntactic proficiency, but the expression of problems requires a syntax because separate words are not enough, and only our ancestors evolved a protolanguage, and then a syntax, and finally Turing completeness. Besides these results, the introduction of Turing completeness and problem solving to explain the evolution of syntax should help us to fit the evolution of language within the evolution of cognition, giving us some new clues to understand the elusive relation between language and thinking.
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