The three systems run at entirely different timescales, but when they interlock, something extraordinary happens: language is born.
Now Kirby is re-creating his digital experiments in real life with humans and even animals by getting them to repeat things that they learn. He is finding that structure indeed evolves in this way. One of the more thrilling implications of this discovery is how it helps to explain why we can never pin down the right single gene or mutation or brain circuit to explain language: it is just not there. Language seems to emerge out of a combination of biology, individual learning and the transmission of language from one individual to another. The three systems run at entirely different timescales, but when they interlock, something extraordinary happens: language is born.