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

<p>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&nbsp;<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-invention-of-tomorrow-a-natural-history-of-foresight-thomas-suddendorf/18041229" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight</em></a>&nbsp;(with Thomas Suddendorf and Jonathan Redshaw).</p><p><em>Support Mindscape on&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Patreon</em></a><em>.</em></p><p>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.</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.adambulley.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Web site</a></li><li><a href="https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/adam-bulley-0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Harvard web page</a></li><li><a href="https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=kaO2m3wAAAAJ&amp;hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Scholar publications</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/adamdbulley" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>See Privacy Policy at <a href="https://art19.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://art19.com/privacy</a> and California Privacy Notice at <a href="https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info</a>.</p>