from Perspectives on Imitation:
"Imitation, one of the primary forms of social learning, is often thought of as a low-level, relatively childish or even mindless phenomenon. This may be a serious mistake. It is beginning to look, in light of recent work in the cognitive sciences, as if imitation is a rare, perhaps even uniquely human ability, which may be fundamental to what is distinctive about human learning, intelligence, rationality, and culture. If so, this will have important consequences for our understanding of ourselves both individually and socially. In particular, social learning by imitation is not merely a mechanism by means of which children acquire culture, but may also have pervasive influence throughout adulthood, in ways that we are only just beginning to understand."
painting: elsie russel, gaia
Marcus Aurelius 
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