This leap forward in cognitive ability was as profound and important to our species as any of the anatomical changes that made us human. Within 10,000 years after the Lion Man’s creation, all other hominids (except for the very geographically isolated Flores hominids) had become extinct. And humans have continued to change the natural world with incredible speed, using our imagination to survive, adapt, and ultimately take over. The advantage we gained from imagining counterfactuals was the same then as it is today: flexibility, the ability to reflect and improve on past actions, and, perhaps
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