Chimpanzees Do Not Bid Each Other Farewell

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Adam Bully: Chimp's don't say goodbye because they can't imagine meeting again in the future. How do you know that? He says systematic scientific studies of animal competencies are needed to determine whether or not chimps have a capacity for foresight. "Thinking ahead is one of the key things that makes us human," he says.

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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