Language allowed ancestors to think about things absent in time and space

Evidence

Symbols conferred unique cognitive advantages as well, especially language. Our closest cousins the chimps cannot discuss what to do about that pride of lions they spotted the other day by the creek. Nor can they consider where to migrate next Thursday at sundown. With symbols, our ancestors could ponder images not immediately impinging on their senses, thus enabling them to better learn from the past and plan for the future. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 283

Categorization

• BMF: Chimps’ inability to deal with a lion pride across the creek evokes the displacive power of symbol-making in speculative fiction — in 2001: A Space Odyssey the monolith’s gift of tool-use is precisely what separates the protohumans from the leopard at the waterhole, the same functional boundary named here.