RANDY BUCKNER: So one difference between humans and other animals is that other animals, like us, are very good at surviving the moment. Taking in information and thinking about what to do right then. What humans are extraordinary at doing is thinking about the next moments, what might happen in the future, to be prepared for all those things that happen next.

DANIEL GILBERT: Right now you can close your eyes and simulate any point in time. You can think about retirement, you can remember being a child. This seems to be the kind of trick that no other animal can do. You know, we’re the animal that can learn from mistakes without making them. You don’t have to chew a mouthful of thumbtacks to know that it’s a horribly bad idea, nobody’s ever whipped up liver ice cream to see how it tastes, because we can actually simulate these kinds of experiences. This keeps us from making drastic errors that would be very bad for our wellbeing. So this ability to prospect, to think about what might happen, allows us to choose between the futures that are best and the futures that are worst.

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