Human Spark with Alan Alda on PBS

Have been watching PBS's Human Spark with Alan Alda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda

Always like Alan Alda in science shows. But the science in this show is especially interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/humanspark/

There are threads in the show that what makes us human is our imagination and our urge to understand the world around us. And we seek as humans to map the intentions of others, remember our past and map our future and be outside the limits of our self. In a way, this show is both about that and helps us to some extent do that.

It is especially exciting to learn something new when that new something is about how we learn something new, or the conditions around our interactions and innovations. That is precisely what this show proposes to touch.

Learned some great stuff about to what level we can read others intentions... "Mary is thinking that, Jim is thinking that Bob may be worried about his children." Doubly neat that the same areas of the brain that work on these problems of intent may be what allow us to imagine other times and places.

Snippet about mimicry was very enlightening.

The idea that we attribute intent, beyond merely social interactions, to everything sheds a powerful light on why we think about a universe driven by externalities. It almost sets one at ease to know, writ small, this is extremely useful, but also that, writ large, it may be a simple source of some of our deepest social problems.