The importance of trade and what we ambiguously call “money” demonstrates a simple fact: humans are natural cooperators. Evolutionarily, this is no surprise. Agents gain more if they manage to coordinate on mutual contribution than if they act alone. Any subset of a population that succeeds in coordinating on such cooperation will tend to outcompete […]
animal signalling
On the behaviour of language 2
Humans have a strong need to communicate.I illustrated this in my previous post by comparing mother–infant communication in humans and chimpanzees. Human infants are surrounded by a flurry of signals directed at them — gestures, words, and tones from mothers and other elders — something unseen in other primates, where communication, if any, flows from […]