The CEU Department of Cognitive Science cordially invites you to the following talk by:
Daniel Dor (Tel Aviv University)
Date:
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Time: 4
pm (to 5:30 pm) CET
Venue: D002
(QS Vienna) and
Zoom:
https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/97850682852?pwd=5r6K3CIvcBXnPqPejCPAv0pb5bc7uS.1
Meeting ID: 978 5068 2852
Passcode: 786581
Chair: Eva Wittenberg
Title:
Mimesis, Language and the Emergence of Collaborative Computation in Human Evolution
Abstract:
In this paper, I will present the backbone of a new perspective on human evolution. First, I will suggest that our uniqueness as a species
lies in the fact that we base our survival on collaborative computation. The other animals (with the possible exception of social insects) rely on individualistic computation: even when they cooperate and communicate, learn from each other and (in the case
of apes) read each other’s minds, each individual involved makes all the mental computations required on its own, within its nervous system. Our nervous systems, on the other hand, while still partially autonomous, function as nodes (end-users) on our social
networks – where the computational challenges (of perception, learning, memory, prediction, decision-making etc.) are met through intensive mental collaboration.
Second, I will claim that Collaborative computation requires a new general type of communication, which I will call instructive communication: when
A instructs B, A intervenes in B’s mental dynamics, instructing it in the process of understanding the message. This is exactly what the other animals do not do when they communicate.
This characterization of our uniqueness allows for a new two-staged perspective on the process of human evolution. In the first stage, from around
two million years ago (in Homo erectus), collaborative computation was made possible for the first time by the uniquely human communicative toolkit of mimesis: mimetic communication, especially the pointing gesture, allows for the systematic instruction of
the computations involved in perception, and thus allows for collaborative computation as long as the contents are available for direct experiencing by the participants.
In the second stage (probably in late erectus), based on mimesis, language began to allow communicators to break the barrier of direct experiencing,
and collaborate in the computation of contents that lie beyond the here and now. As I show in earlier publications, the architecture of language is specifically designed (by cultural evolution) for the instruction of the computations involved in imagination.
*Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend in-person in Vienna
must reply here to get access to the lecture hall.
Let
Eva know, please,
if you would like to schedule a meeting with the speaker.
Best,
Reka
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GyörgyNÉ Finta (Réka)
Department Coordinator
Department of cognitive SCience
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