Memory or Foresight in Evolutionary History?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

E. coli seems to switch on digestive genes for the digestion of maltose hours before it reaches its host's digestive system. The variants that did that were more likely to survive and pass on those beneficial genes to the next generation. So over time, you can get very functioning forms of preparation evolving without anyone really having a considered plan about how it all is going to work.

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).

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

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.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.