The word imitation is derived from the Latin word imitari meaning learn. You don't normally think that you learn by imitation, because it's weird to think that. When someone says ¨imitation¨ you don't go straight to thinking, ¨learn.¨
According to scientists and psychologists, we learn by imitation. We essentially copy others to learn how to do, well, anything. This is how it's been for the longest time, dating back to the Renaissance. Astronomers built from Ptolemy's theories. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton all improved the old theories.
My dad tells me all the time that when I was a baby around 1 years old, I'd follow him everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. He says that if he got up from the bed and walked to the cabinet, opened it, then closed it, I'd do the exact same thing; get up, walk to the cabinet, open it, then close it again. My younger siblings do that to me, well they did for about a month then they just did their own thing. They still imitate us, but they don't follow us everywhere, like I did.
I find it funny how we learn by imitation. It's kind of like an innate behavior. We do it all the time without even knowing that we do it. It's like it's important to our nature, without it we'd be nothing, not knowing what to do and how to do anything. Now that's what you call an innate behavior. Weird, isn't it?
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