Mindscape 221 | Adam Bulley on How Mental Time Travel Makes Us Human

Patreon: / seanmcarroll
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
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).
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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This channel is gold

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Needs more latinum.

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[@rumblefishes]

Brilliant stuff, thank you!

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Happy New Year Sean ! Show him some support, like and subscribe. Donate if you are able, and share those big ideas 💡

[@deeiks12]

Fantastic episode!

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Thank you Sean for your amazing work!

[@8pelagic610]

Fantastic discussion.

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🍾🍾🍾Happy New Year And My Best Wishes of Successes and Good Health to Prof. Carroll and family and the Mindscape community. 🎉🎉🎉

[@DAird-tw7zt]

great convo!

[@virilian]

Fantastic discussion

[@semidemiurge]

Good episode

[@Life_42]

I love MINDSCAPE!!!

[@frabcus]

At 18:00 they discuss aphantasics (who don't have a visual imagination). Adam mentions some research that shows they do have a harder time imagining the future and planning for events. Anyone know a reference for that research? Thanks for any help!

[@rumidude]

I have to think that our language ability is at the base of most of this stuff.

[@ai_serf]

And what is the base of language? To even write the letter 'A' you need conservation of energy :D

[@chrisreed3022]

I am with you on language but I am interested in this from the 'imagination' perspective, particularly regards the arts therapies so believe language is in there but at the top level not the base. It is great at summarising what goes on below as subjective experience so we can share it. Image can do this too and at some point Adam Bully does suggest the inner experience of this is visual, hence the word 'foresight'. He suggests it is multimodal and networked and networks don't have a base. I have to think it is more of a rhizome kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZ_XlpyIhJKLnLc

[@websurfer352]

I would supppse that individuals who find it difficult to manipulate imaginary objects spatial orientation would have flat dream content?? While others who are adept at manipulating imaginary content would have full in depth dream content in 3-dimensions??

[@JimsMaher]

45:53 "the Bishop Kerla hypothesis"? ... I can't find anything about it. Am I getting the name right? Any clarification or sources? I'd to look into it further

[@agimasoschandir]

Doris Bischof-Köhler. Other than research papers in English, there is a Wikipedia entry in German on her

[@Nisstyre56]

David Hume would have some interesting thoughts if he were alive today on this topic

[@shehrosemian]

10:58 it's not clear from Bulley's description whether or not the goose knows that the egg has been replaced. Would the goose act with surprise after looking at the "egg"? If the "egg" doesn't ever hatch?

[@jjwhittle8873]

I don't think geese are capable of acting in surprise at anything that isn't purely fight or flight based. If the egg doesn't hatch they'll probably just think it's dead.

[@websurfer352]

Chimpanzees not saying goodbye could mean that they operate in the present and do not bother with the past or future?? Greeting each other occurs in the present and so they acknowledge its other’s presence!! In more human terms they are not sentimental like we are, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have no foresight or cannot imagine the future??

[@HENRYIII003]

Drug tag memory is one of my favorite triplets. Thinking about memory tags led me to identify a memory tag wildfire for a funny house of cards kind of thought cloud, a big set of tags all updated at the same time, all demotions lol

[@robinstevens5189]

If Absolute Zero is when there is no speed/energy/movement/temperature in a body, what happens when you speed/energise/envigorate/heat it up to and beyond the speed of light ?

[@jjwhittle8873]

You can't. It would take more energy than the whole universe contains.

[@oliver9568]

I'm not an expert but as I undestand it only a particle without mass can reach the SoL, because if it has mass, as it speeds up it generates "friction" with space-time or some quantum field, making it harder to accelerate. Why a photon can't exeed the SoL? That I don't get.😅

[@oliver9568]

​@@jjwhittle8873 That doesn't make much sense to normal human beings. That would imply that a single photon already uses 99.99% of all the energy of the universe.

[@jjwhittle8873]

@@oliver9568 No, because a photon has no mass, so the speed of light is its default velocity. You don't need energy to get it to go that fast. Something with mass does need energy to accelerate it, and the closer you get to the speed of light, the more energy you need, until the number runs away to infinity. Because spacetime has a structure, there *has* to be a speed limit to how fast cause and effect can happen. "Why can't a photon go faster than the speed of light" suggests that their should either be a) a different speed limit or b) no speed limit - neither of which make any sense.

[@oliver9568]

@@jjwhittle8873 Thank you! That cleared up some things. Do you think a photon or even a particle with mass, can exeed the SoL if it accelerated towards the center of a black hole?, Where spacetime theoretically flows faster than the SoL.

[@lewisdickens3293]

'Time Travel' What a fucking liberty ! I Have a TARDIS on full overdrive to stop you silly buggers from bruising yourselves. Ask my rescued wild male cat why he purrs before he sees me... ask me why it's needed sixty-three birthdays to find the woman I love [ I'm over a thousand years old, so I'm ok with that]... Ask her - do you know this yet......

[@EasyLifeEntertainment]

Good to see Adin Ross got a normal job on the side

[@stephencolbertcheese7354]

sumhow i'v time travelled to 2023

[@robotaholic]

Why do they call it mental time travel instead of just calling it by what it is: modeling or future self modeling...but mental time travel doesn't seem right...he should have modeled possible future customers lol just kidding 😜 not disputing veracity of the theory at all

[@courrierdebois]

All this stuff is just thought doing something.

[@khalilullah1047]

Sir give me answer ?

[@jjwhittle8873]

to what?

[@HarryNicNicholas]

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