外刊阅读20240920｜人与吗喽的最大区别就是...

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Why do humans have thousands of tools and other animals have only a few? At the risk of oversimplification, Tomasello and his colleagues (1993, 2001, 2009) argue that humans are unique in their ability to create cultural products such as tools. Compared to nonhuman animals, we are exceptionally talented at learning from one another, in part because we can take the perspective of another person and recognize their intentions. Other animals cannot do this.

Humans are also able to transmit cultural products with high fidelity . In other words, we’re gifted imitators and replicators. We can see something (a gesture or diagram) or hear something (a new word or melody ) and produce an exact or nearly exact copy. High fidelity is necessary for the successful accumulation of cultural knowledge. A cultural product that is replicated with low fidelity—a joke that’s mangled in the retelling, for example—usually ends up in the dustbin of history.

Tomasello’s theory of cultural learning includes another key concept called the ratchet effect. Cultural innovations can be shared with others. When a person makes a better mousetrap or some other technological improvement, the advance can leap from one human mind to another by means of language, imitation, and social learning. As a result, technological progress does not slip back to an earlier stage. It moves up and forward, one small step at a time.

Instances of the ratchet effect can be found throughout human history. The first hammer was a handheld rock, then a rock tied to a stick, and eventually, a molded piece of steel fitted to the end of a sculpted wooden or plastic handle. The first recorded music was inscribed on metal cylinders, followed by vinyl records, magnetic tapes, and eventually digital files in computers.