Various deficits in the cognitive functioning of people with autism have been documented in recent years but these provide only partial explanations for the condition. We focus instead on an imitative disturbance involving difficulties both in copying actions and in inhibiting more stereotyped mimicking, such as echolalia. A candidate for the neural basis of this disturbance may be found in a recently discovered class of neurons in frontal cortex, 'mirror neurons' (MNs). These neurons show activity in relation both to specific (...) actions performed by self and matching actions performed by others, providing a potential bridge between minds. MN systems exist in primates without imitative and ‘theory of mind’ abilities and we suggest that in order for them to have become utilized to perform social cognitive functions, sophisticated cortical neuronal systems have evolved in which MNs function as key elements. Early developmental failures of MN systems are likely to result in a consequent cascade of developmental impairments characterised by the clinical syndrome of autism. (shrink)

To the extent that language is conventional, non-verbal individuals, including human infants, must participate in conventions in order to learn to use even simple utterances of words. This raises the question of which varieties of learning could make this possible. In this paper I defend Tomasello’s (The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard UP, Cambridge, 1999, Origins of human communication. MIT, Cambridge, 2008) claim that knowledge of linguistic conventions could be learned through imitation. This is possible because Lewisian accounts (...) of convention have overstated what one must know to participate in conventions; and because the required knowledge could be learned imitatively. The imitation claim that I defend is consistent with what we know about both the proliferation of conventional behaviours in human children, who are skilful imitators, and the comparative absence of such behaviours in non-human great apes, who are poor at imitative learning. (shrink)

Moral virtue is, for Aristotle, famously acquired through the practice of virtuous actions. But how should we understand the activity of Aristotle’s moral learner, and how does her activity result in the acquisition of virtue? I argue that by understanding Aristotle’s learner as engaged in the emulative imitation of a virtuous agent, we can best account for her development. Such activity crucially involves the adoption of the virtuous agent’s perspective, from which I argue the learner is positioned so as (...) to appreciate the value of virtuous action—its fineness—and what it would be to act finely herself. (shrink)

In Mortal Imitations of Divine Life, Diamond offers an interpretation of De Anima, which explains how and why Aristotle places souls in a hierarchy of value. Aristotle’s central intention in De Anima is to discover the nature and essence of soul—the prin­ciple of living beings. He does so by identifying the common structures underlying every living activity, whether it be eating, perceiving, thinking, or moving through space. As Diamond demonstrates through close readings of De Anima, the nature of the soul (...) is most clearly seen in its divine life, while the embodied soul’s other activi­ties are progressively clearer approximations of this principle. This interpretation shows how Aristotle’s psychology and biology cannot be properly understood apart from his theological conception of God as life, and offers a new explanation of De Anima’s unity of purpose and structure. (shrink)

What is the evolutionary significance of the various mechanisms of imitation, emulation and social learning found in humans and other animals? This paper presents an advance in the theoretical resources for addressing that question, in the light of which standard approaches from the cultural evolution literature should be refocused. The central question is whether humans have an imitationbased inheritance system—a mechanism that has the evolutionary function of transmitting behavioural phenotypes reliably down the generations. To have the evolutionary power of (...) an inheritance system, an imitiation-based mechanism must meet a range of demanding requirements. The paper goes on to review the evidence for and against the hypothesis that there is indeed an imitation-based inheritance system in humans. (shrink)

This paper investigates Descartes’s understanding of the imago Dei, that it is above all in virtue of the will that we bear the image and likeness of God. I challenge the key assumption of arguments that hold that Descartes’s comparison between the human will and the divine will is problematic—that in his conception of the imago Dei Descartes is alluding to Scholastic conceptions of analogy available to him at the time, which would place particular constraints on the legitimacy of the (...) comparison. I argue instead that Descartes is evoking a different tradition regarding the nature of image and imitation, stemming from Augustine and Aquinas, and thus, that those constraints do not apply. I then argue that Descartes thinks the likeness between the human will and God’s will is that both are infinite in “extent.” This means that human will can “extend itself” not only to things that can be the object of some other will, but to things that can be the object of God’s will. This is notable because Descartes famously thinks that absolutely anything can be the object of God’s will. I explain why this interpretation is not implausible, contrary to first appearances. (shrink)

First published in 1999, this book brings together the extensive modern evidence for innate imitation in babies. Modern research has shown imitation to be a natural mechanism of learning and communication which deserves to be at centre stage in developmental psychology. Yet the very possibility of imitation in newborn humans has had a controversial history. Defining imitation has proved to be far from straightforward and scientific evidence for its existence in neonates is only now becoming accepted, (...) despite more than a century of enquiry. In this book, some of the world's foremost researchers on imitation and intellectual development review evidence for imitation in newborn babies. They discuss the development of imitation in infancy, in both normal and atypical populations and in comparison with other primate species, stressing the fundamental importance of imitation in human development, as a foundation of communication and a precursor to symbolic processes. (shrink)

L'imitation est-elle l'apanage de l'espèce humaine? Dans quelle mesure l'imitation, abondamment mentionnée dans le discours colonial, est-elle révélatrice des ambiguïtés de la situation coloniale? Comment rendre intelligible l'adoption délibérée par des individus tant de comportements que de gestes imitatifs? Qu'il s'agisse des rapports entre les colons français et les "indigènes" , de la constitution de Tahiti en paradis touristique , des différences entre hip-hop français et américain , ou encore des liens entre les dimensions biologique, psychologique et culturelle (...) de l'imitation , tous les textes réunis ici révèlent l'importance du rôle joué par l'imitation dans le phénomène de la culture. (shrink)

In this book, first published in 1984, Joel Weinsheimer advocates revitalizing the practice of imitating literature as a mode appropriate for literary critics as well as artists. The book is not only about imitation; it is itself an imitation, specifically of Samuel Johnson. As both the focus and mode of presentation, imitation is presented not merely as a kind of poetry that once flourished in the eighteenth century but also as a kind of criticism particularly relevant today. (...) Applying arguments from philosophy of science, deconstruction, psycho-analysis, literary theory, semiotics and hermeneutics, Weinsheimer shows that the three main currents of thought responsible for forcing imitation underground were empiricism, originalism and historicism. The three central chapters of the book concentrate on their representatives: John Locke, Edward Young and Thomas Warton. The author then applies Johnsonian arguments – supported by those of Gadamer Peirce – to challenge those objections and re-establish imitation as an intellectually defensible mode of writing. (shrink)

Being 'biblical' : contexts and starting points -- Jesus of Nazareth : great moral teacher or friend of sinners? -- Paul : follower or founder? -- Mark : suffering for the kingdom -- Matthew : being truly righteous -- Luke-Acts : a universal concern -- John : teaching the truth in love -- Apartheid : an ethical and generic challenge to reading the New Testament.

Imitation research has focused on turn‐taking contexts in which one person acts and one person then copies that action. However, people also imitate when engaging in joint actions, where two or more people coordinate their actions in space and time in order to achieve a shared goal. We discuss how the various constraints imposed by joint action modulate imitation, and the close links between perception and action that form the basis of this phenomenon. We also explore how understanding (...) imitation in the context of joint action yields new insights into cultural phenomena such as teaching and innovation. (shrink)

For acquired behaviour to count as cultural, two conditions must be met: it must propagate in a social group, and it must remain stable across generations in the process of propagation. It is commonly assumed that imitation is the mechanism that explains both the spread of animal culture and its stability. We review the literature on transmission chain studies in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and other animals, and we use a formal model to argue that imitation, which may well (...) play a major role in the propagation of animal culture, cannot be considered faithful enough to explain its stability. We consider the contribution that other psychological and ecological factors might make to the stability of animal culture observed in the wild. (shrink)

Imitation has been understood in different ways: as a cognitive adaptation subtended by genetically specified cognitive mechanisms; as an aspect of domain general human cognition. The second option has been advanced by Cecilia Heyes who treats imitation as an instance of associative learning. Her argument is part of a deflationary treatment of the “mirror neuron” phenomenon. I agree with Heyes about mirror neurons but argue that Kim Sterelny has provided the tools to provide a better account of the (...) nature and role of human imitation. What we call imitative learning is an instance of social learning. It has little to do with empathy, emotional contagion, or mind reading. (shrink)

What is the relationship between imitation and culture? This article charts how definitions of imitation have changed in the last century, distinguishes three senses of “culture” used by contemporary evolutionists (Culture1–Culture3), and summarises current disagreement about the relationship between imitation and culture. The disagreement arises from ambiguities in the distinction between imitation and emulation, and confusion between two explanatory projects—the anthropocentric project and the cultural selection project. I argue that imitation gives cultural evolution an inheritance (...) mechanism for communicative and gestural skills (but not technological skills), and cultural selection yields the cognitive mechanisms that make imitation possible. (shrink)

Imitation and mirroring processes are necessary but not sufficient conditions for children to develop human sociality. Human sociality entails more than the equivalence and connectedness of perceptual experiences. It corresponds to the sense of a shared world made of shared values. It originates from complex ‘open’ systems of reciprocation and negotiation, not just imitation and mirroring processes that are by definition ‘closed’ systems. From this premise, we argue that if imitation and mirror processes are important foundations for (...) sociality, human inter-subjectivity develops primarily in reciprocation, not just imitation. Imitation provides a basic sense of social connectedness and mutual acknowledgment of existing with others that are ‘like me.’ However, it does not allow for the co-construction of meanings with others. For human sociality to develop, imitation and mirroring processes need to be supplemented by an open system of reciprocation. Developmental research shows that from the second month, mirroring, imitative, and other contagious emotional responses are by-passed. Imitation gives way to first signs of reciprocation (primary intersubjectivity), joint attention to objects (secondary intersubjectivity), the emergence of values that are jointly represented and negotiated with others (tertiary intersubjectivity), and eventually the development of an ethical stance accompanying theories of mind by 4 years of age. We review this development and propose that if mirroring processes enable individuals to bridge their subjective experiences, human inter-subjectivity proper develops from reciprocal social exchanges that lead to value negotiation and mutual recognition, both cardinal trademarks of human sociality. (shrink)

The dispute between simulation theorists and theory theorists follows a basic pattern in philosophical discussions of cognitive science. This chapter brings some of the topics of social theory into the discussion. The discussion of the problem of understanding in social theory has developed in two traditions: Verstehen, or empathy, the German tradition of Wilhelm Dilthey and Max Weber, and in taking the role of the other originating in the thought of G. H. Mead. Each regards understanding as both an activity (...) of theorists and of human beings themselves in the course of their dealings with one another. The topic of imitation became important in American psychology for reasons quite separate from its role in social theory. The psychological explanation holds that at least some emotions, and perhaps all real emotions, are universal and are explicable by features of human psychology, biology, and development that are themselves universal. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Agency and Access to the World Speaking and Seeing Imitation Some Resources of Narration The Varieties of Narrative Imitation.

This issue of the Kybernetes journal is concerned with the philosophical question- Can a Machine Think? Famously, in his 1950 paper `Computing Machinery andIntelligence' [9], the British mathematician Alan Turing suggested replacing this question - which he found \too meaningless to deserve discussion" - with a simple -behavioural - test based on an imagined `Victorianesque' pastime he entitled the`imitation game'. In this special issue of Kybernetes a selection of authors with a special interest in Turing's work (including those who (...) participated in the 2008 AISB Turing Symposium) have been invited to explore and clarify issues arising from Turing's 1950 paper on the Imitation Game; now more widely known as the Turing test. (shrink)

Over 35 years ago, Meltzoff and Moore (1977) published their famous article ‘Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates’. Their central conclusion, that neonates can imitate, was and continues to be controversial. Here we focus on an often neglected aspect of this debate, namely on neonatal spontaneous behaviors themselves. We present a case study of a paradigmatic orofacial ‘gesture’, namely tongue protrusion and retraction (TP/R). Against the background of new research on mammalian aerodigestive development, we ask: How (...) does the human aerodigestive system develop and what role does TP/R play in the neonate’s emerging system of aerodigestion? We show that mammalian aerodigestion develops in two phases: (1) from the onset of isolated orofacial movements in utero to the post-natal mastery of suckling at 4 months after birth, and; (2) thereafter, from preparation to the mastery of mastication and deglutition of solid foods. Like other orofacial stereotypies, TP/R emerges in the first phase and vanishes prior to the second. Based upon recent advances in activity-driven early neural development, we suggest a sequence of three developmental events in which TP/R might participate: the acquisition of tongue control, the integration of the central pattern generator for TP/R with other aerodigestive CPGs, and the formation of connections within the cortical maps of S1 and M1. If correct, orofacial stereotypies are crucial to the maturation of aerodigestion in the neonatal period but also unlikely to co-occur with imitative behavior. (shrink)

Showing remarkable insight into the relationship between language and thought, Alan Turing in 1950 proposed the Imitation Game as a proxy for the question “Can machines think?” and its meaning and practicality have been debated hotly ever since. The Imitation Game has come under criticism within the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence communities with leading scientists proposing alternatives, revisions, or even that the Game be abandoned entirely. Yet Turing’s imagined conversational fragments between human and machine are rich with (...) complex instances of inference of implied information, reasoning from generalizations, and meta-reasoning, challenges AI practitioners have wrestled with since at least 1980 and continue to study. We argue that the very fact the Imitation Game is so difficult may be the very reason it shouldn’t be changed or abandoned. The semi-decidability of the game at this point hints at the possibility of a hard limit to the powers of technology. (shrink)

Turing’s Imitation Game is often viewed as a test for theorised machines that could ‘think’ and/or demonstrate ‘intelligence’. However, contrary to Turing’s apparent intent, it can be shown that Turing’s Test is essentially a test for humans only. Such a test does not provide for theorised artificial intellects with human-like, but not human-exact, intellectual capabilities. As an attempt to bypass this limitation, I explore the notion of shifting the goal posts of the Turing Test, and related tests such as (...) the Total Turing Test, away from the exact imitation of human capabilities, and towards communication with humans instead. While the continued philosophical relevance of such tests is open to debate, the outcome is a different class of tests which are, unlike the Turing Test, immune to failure by means of sub-cognitive questioning techniques. I suggest that attempting to instantiate such tests could potentially be more scientifically and pragmatically relevant to some Artificial Intelligence researchers, than instantiating a Turing Test, due to the focus on producing a variety of goal directed outcomes through communicative methods, as opposed to the Turing Test’s emphasis on ‘fooling’ an Examiner. (shrink)

IMITATION is a matter of such familiarity to us all that it goes usually unattended to: so much so that professed psychologists have left it largely undiscussed. Whether it be one of the more ultimate facts or not, suppose we assume it to be so; let us then see what we can explain by it, and where we may be able to trace its influence in the developed mind.

Etudie les aspects, les moyens et les précédents de l'interprétation que fait Plotin (205-270) de l'idée platonicienne de participation. L'auteur met en avant l'importance de la notion d'imitation dans l'hypothèse d'un processus d'engendrement des existences à partir des trois réalités véritables (l'Un, l'Intellect et l'Ame).

A number of philosophers have recently held that the phenomenal aspect of experience cannot be adequately dealt with within a materialist account of the mind-body relation. A natural response for those who take both this objection and scientific considerations seriously is to adopt either a double-aspect theory of mind or a version of epiphenomenalism. In this paper I will examine such a view recently defended by Keith Campbell. Campbell calls his view a ‘new’ epiphenomenalism. I shall begin by considering Campbell's (...) conception of an imitation-man, a notion which has been elsewhere employed in arguments against materialism. I shall demonstrate that Campbell is thereby committed to entertaining seriously a suspect form of causation which I have labeled "sometime-causation". I shall then proceed to argue that for this and other reasons, Campbell's ‘new’ epiphenomenalism is not clearly superior to its traditional predecessor. (shrink)

To be human is to imitate. This is a strong claim, and a contentious one. It implies that the turning point in hominid evolution was when our ancestors first began to copy each other’s sounds and actions, and that this new ability was responsible for transforming an ordinary ape into one with a big brain, language, a curious penchant for music and art, and complex cumulative culture. The argument, briefly, is this. All evolutionary processes depend on information being copied with (...) variation and selection. Most living things on earth are the product of evolution based on the copying, varying and selection of genes. However, once humans began to imitate they provided a new kind of copying and so let loose an evolutionary process based on the copying, varying and selection of memes. This new evolutionary system co-evolved with the old to turn us into more than gene machines. We, alone on this planet, are also meme machines. We are selective imitation devices in an evolutionary arms race with a new replicator. This is why we are so different from other creatures; this is why we alone have big brains, language and complex culture. There are many contentious issues here; the nature and status of memes, the validity of the concept of a replicator, the difference between this and other theories of gene-culture co-evolution, and whether memetics really is necessary, as I believe it is, to explain human nature. I shall outline the basic principles of memetics, show how memes could have driven human evolution, and consider some of these questions along the way. (shrink)

In IVP50S, Spinoza claims that “one who is moved to aid others neither by reason nor by pity is rightly called inhuman. For (by IIIP27) he seems to be unlike a man” (IVP50S). At first blush, the claim seems implausible, as it relies on the dubious assumption that beings will necessarily imitate the affects of conspecifics. In the first two sections of this paper, I explain why Spinoza accepts this thesis and show how this claim can be made compatible with (...) his account of representation. In the third and final section I offer an auxiliary defense of the thesis, showing that, according to Spinoza, to be human is to sociable, and sociability depends on the imitation of the affects. (shrink)

In the past 20 years or so, the psychological research on imitation has flourished. However, our working definition of imitation has not adequately adapted in order to reflect this research. The closest that we've come to a revamped conception of imitation comes from the work of Michael Tomasello. Despite its numerous virtues, Tomasello's definition is in need of at least two significant amendments, if it is to reflect the current state of knowledge. Accordingly, it is our goal (...) in this paper to reformulate Tomasello's definition of imitation in order to account for both the latest empirical findings and the conceptual considerations that follow from them. Specifically, we argue that a satisfactory definition of imitation ought to be formulated as follows: imitation is the reproduction of an observed behavior where the agent imitating recognizes the behavior of the demonstrator as goal-directed and has some particular interest in or concern for replicating the precise technique performed by the aut.. (shrink)

Recent research on infant and animal imitation and on mirror neuron systems has
brought imitation back in focus in psychology and cognitive science. This topic has
always been important for philosophical hermeneutics as well, focusing on theory and
method of understanding. Unfortunately, relations between the scientific and the
hermeneutic approaches to imitation and understanding have scarcely been investigated,
to the loss of both disciplines. In contrast to the cognitive scientific emphasis on
sharing and convergence of representations, the hermeneutic analysis emphasizes the
indeterminacy and openness (...) of action understanding due to preunderstanding, action
configuration, and the processual nature of understanding. This article discusses empirical
evidence in support of these aspects and concludes that hermeneutics can
contribute to the scientific investigation of imitation and understanding. Since, conversely,
some grounding—and constraining—aspects of hermeneutics may be derived
from cognitive science, both should be integrated in a multilevel explanation of
imitation and understanding. This holds also for explanations that are largely based on
mirror neuron systems, since these appear to be sensitive to developmental and
experiential factors, too. (shrink)

"Mark Wilson aims to reconnect analytic philosophy with the evolving practicalities within science from which many of its grander concerns originally sprang. He offers an alternative history of how the subject might have developed had the insights of its philosopher/scientist forebears not been cast aside in the vain pursuit of 'ersatz rigor'"--.

To investigate the cognitive processes underlying creative inspiration, we tested the extent to which viewing or copying prior examples impacted creative output in art. In Experiment 1, undergraduates made drawings under three conditions: copying an artist's drawing, then producing an original drawing; producing an original drawing without having seen another's work; and copying another artist's work, then reproducing that artist's style independently. We discovered that through copying unfamiliar abstract drawings, participants were able to produce creative drawings qualitatively different from the (...) model drawings. Process analyses suggested that participants' cognitive constraints became relaxed, and new perspectives were formed from copying another's artwork. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to styles of artwork considered unfamiliar facilitated creativity in drawing, while styles considered familiar did not do so. Experiment 3 showed that both copying and thoroughly viewing artwork executed using an unfamiliar style facilitated creativity in drawing, whereas merely thinking about alternative styles of artistic representation did not do so. These experiments revealed that deep encounters with unfamiliar artworks—whether through copying or prolonged observation—change people's cognitive representations of the act of drawing to produce novel artwork. (shrink)

The poets and prose-writers of Greece and Rome were acutely conscious of their literary heritage. They expressed this consciousness in the regularity with which, in their writings, they imitated and alluded to the great authors who had preceded them. Such imitation was generally not regarded as plagiarism but as essential to the creation of a new literary work: imitating one's predecessors was in no way incompatible with originality or progress. These views were not peculiar to the writers of Greece (...) and Rome but were adopted by many others who have written in the 'classical tradition' right up to modern times. Creative Imitation and Latin Literature is an exploration of this concept of imitation. The contributors analyse selected passages from various authors - Greek, Latin and English - in order to demonstrate how Latin authors created new works of art by imitating earlier passages of literature. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;Metaphor and analogy are the scaffolding of science. Kepler's theory of the retinal picture could not have been built without the analogy between an eye and a camera obscura, and, two hundred and fifty years later, Charles Darwin devoted most of the first chapter of The origin of Species to discussion of pigeon fanciers. Unlike Darwin, Kepler was bewitched by his own imagination and was led to wonder "how (...) this image or picture is joined to the visual faculty, which is situated in the retina and in the nerve, and whether it is placed within the hollows of the brain, before the soul or tribunal of the visual faculty, or whether the visual faculty, like a magistrate sent by the soul from the administrative chamber of the brain, descends into the optic nerve or retina to meet this image, as though to a lower court" . ;The theory of the retinal image answered the crucial question of medieval optics: the scaffolding had served its purpose and should have been dismantled. Instead, Kepler mistook it for a part of the building: what he construed as a scientific problem was nothing more than the extension of a metaphor. As a result, and in spite of his remarkable achievement, he left the theory of vision in a state of confusion. ;I intend to show that Descartes revolutionized visual theory by manipulating the pair of analogies which had dominated visual theory since its inception and by advancing a theory of depiction which has since become orthodox. Advocates of the first analogy suggest that seeing the world is rather like seeing pictures of it; Kepler's analogy between the eye and a camera obscura, which was anticipated by Leonardo de Vinci, was a variation on this theme. Advocates of the second analogy compare vision to the use of a walking-stick: the air transmits an impression of a visible object to the eye rather as a walking-stick enables us to find our way around in the dark by transmitting pressures to the hand. As I shall show, Descartes' rejection of the pictorial analogy in favour of the walking-stick analogy and his theory of depiction were designed to salvage Kepler's theory of the retinal picture, a pearl of great price, from its murky setting. ;Descartes aimed to show that whilst Kepler's theory of the retinal picture correctly described the optics of the eye, the pictorial analogy was misleading and stood in the way of a mechanistic theory of perception. ;Current visual theory is Cartesian in some respects and un-Cartesian in others. The walking-stick analogy is no longer used, but the explanatory pattern that it served to illustrate is adhered to closely where the perception of brightness and colour are concerned, and the causal theory of depiction commands widespread support. At the same time, the pictorial analogy has not lost its appeal. (shrink)

Although long forgotten, the sociology of Gabriel Tarde has suddenly re-emerged. This article backs up the renewed interest in Tarde in four ways. First, drawing upon the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, it demonstrates that the usual critique of Tarde is false: Tarde’s theory of imitation is not trapped in any kind of psychologism but is, indeed, a pure sociology. Against this background, the second part of the article argues that the notion of imitation is closely tied to (...) urbanity, which brings Tarde close to the spatial turn of social thought. While Tarde’s work thus seems compatible with contemporary sociological currents, it also transcends what is presently discussed. The third part of the article therefore examines Tarde’s analysis of urban crowds, as the crowd demonstrates the paradoxical nature of the social. Finally, drawing upon Henri Lefebvre, the article outlines the contours of a particular, contemporary Tardean analysis of imitations. More specifically, the suggestion is to add a more explicitly structural dimension to Tarde’s work, which, it is argued, may be accomplished by pursuing a rhythmanalysis. The rhythmanalysis enables one to bring together Tarde’s focus on imitation, urbanity and crowds. (shrink)

Humans are uncontroversially better than other species at learning from their peers. A key example of this is imitation, the ability to reproduce both the means and ends of others’ behaviours. Imitation is critical to the acquisition of a number of uniquely human cultural and cognitive traits. However, while authors largely agree on the importance of imitation, they disagree about the origins of imitation in humans. Some argue that imitation is an adaptation, connected to the (...) ‘Mirror Neuron System’ that evolved to facilitate action understanding and the learning of social behaviours. Others argue that imitation is a cultural practice learned in childhood, and that there is no evidence that it evolved genetically. We offer a third alternative that is consistent with both data that the human brain is optimised for imitation, and consistent with its being substantially learned. We hypothesise that at some point in human history humans underwent natural selection for two imitation-relevant abilities – specifically, (i) the tendency to be more attentive to our peers, and (ii) fine motor skill in the manual and oro-facial domains. These changes enabled us to excel at both learning to imitate, and learning by imitating. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 553-566, July 2022.

For many, the very idea of an artificialintelligence has always been ethicallytroublesome. The putative ability of machinesto mimic human intelligence appears to callinto question the stability of taken forgranted boundaries between subject/object,identity/similarity, free will/determinism,reality/simulation, etc. The artificiallyintelligent object thus appears to threaten thehuman subject with displacement and redundancy.This article takes as its starting point AlanTuring''s famous ''imitation game,'' (the socalled ''Turing Test''), here treated as aparable of the encounter between human originaland machine copy – the born and the made. (...) Thecultural resonances of the recent on-lineperformance of a ''Turing Test'' for computergenerated art are then explored. Arttraditionally taken to stand for all that isconsidered quintessentially human – andtherefore resistant to mechanisation –represents in this sense a kind of ''criticalcase'' in the advance of machine intelligence.The article focuses on the moral status of thebody, human agency, and social knowledge in theongoing (re-)constructions of copy, original,and of the difference between them. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction I Peters on Ritual in Education II R. S. Peters on Ritual and Imitation: An Assessment Future Directions References.