Mimesis and Science Quotes

“That is to say, mimesis, unlike the explicit imitation of one person by another, is never something that one agent does to another, but something that people do to each other, something that always involves reciprocally more than one person.”
― Scott R. Garrels, Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion

“This account of action understanding is further corroborated by a recent discovery: the motor system of primates is functionally organized in terms of goal-directed motor acts, and not in terms of movements.”
― Scott R. Garrels, Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion

“Babies hold a secret about the human mind that has been hidden for millennia. They are our double. They have a primordial drive to understand us that advances their development; we have a desire to understand them that propels social science and philosophy. By examining the minds and hearts of children, we illuminate ourselves.”
― Scott R. Garrels, Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion

“Infants differentially responded to tongue protrusion with tongue protrusion and not lip protrusion, showing that a specific body part can be identified. Infants also differentially responded to lip protrusion versus lip opening, showing that differential action patterns can be imitated with the same body part. They even differentially imitated two separate kinds of acts with the tongue—one that is poking in-out from the midline, and the other that is poking in-out from the side of the mouth.”
― Scott R. Garrels, Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion

“The “psychological movement” that the adult's suggestion brings about in the child has an intentioned teleology. This phenomenon—the imitation of goals and aims, intentions and desires—is what Girard has called mimetic desire.”
― Scott R. Garrels, Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion