Is There a Gap Between Humans and Other Animals?

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The human ability to, to travel mentally in time is just obviously way, way better. At least it's more articulated. You can look further into the future. You can anticipate possibilities, contingencies. You can go into remote distant times. All of those things are much more articulated than other other other animals. But that is not to say that other animals cannot, they have no ability to engage with the future. They have no future directed capacities and understand,. you know, and that is, and it's a gradually acquired trait.

One of the most powerful of all human capacities is the ability to imagine ourselves in hypothetical situations at different times. We can remember the past, but also conjure up possible futures that haven’t yet happened. This simple ability underlies our capability to organize socially and make contracts with other people. Today’s guest, psychologist Adam Bulley, argues that it’s the primary feature that makes us recognizably human, as he argues in the new book The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight (with Thomas Suddendorf and Jonathan Redshaw).

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Adam Bulley received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Queensland. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, and the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.

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