“I think therefore I am.” While this statement is true to the individual there is no way to know for certain that this statement is true for individuals outside the self.
‘Theory of mind’, it’s a term used by phycologists when they study the ability of one mind to understand the possible content of another mind. Knowing or suspecting the intentions, desires, knowledge, or emotional state of another’s mind is a useful tool for in the evolutionary struggle for survival.
It’s an ability possessed by more than just humans. Primates, dogs and even crows possess the ability to deduce the intentions of others.
Crows for instance have been seen hiding food from other crows to ensure the security of their own food source. Yet if another Crow is present and watching, the first Crow will return when the second crow has left the area and re-hiding their stash of food.
The crow understands the possible intentions of its fellow crow and takes steps to protect its own means towards survival.
In humans the ability to deduct the intentions of another mind is far more advance. We are able to infer the intentions or emotions of our fellow humans, we are also able to do the same for a great number of animals.
This attribute has given us an evolutionary edge, and with the exception of language it may be our most import mental attribute.
But, theory of mind begins to break down when human beings attribute intentions and motivation to natural occurrences that do not in fact possess intentions or motivations.
Most of us are familiar with the idea of the ventriloquist dummy. An individual manipulates an inanimate object bestowing upon it human personality traits. The ventriloquist speaks without moving their lips, while at the same time moving the ‘lips’ of the inanimate object.
As human beings, we are able to get enjoyment out of this phenomenon because, despite our logical brain being aware that the dummy is nothing more that piece of wood or plastic shaped to appear humanoid and given ‘life’ by the actions of the ventriloquist, our highly developed ability to infer a ‘Theory of Mind’ makes overlooking the knowledge of our logical brain easy, and we are able to enjoy the absurdities and mental acrobatics that occur within our own brains while we watch. The ventriloquist can say horrible and offensive things yet in our eyes they remain innocent and humorously share in our sense of outrage as we attribute the offensive behaviour to the dummy.
While this is an amusing example of theory of mind, it illustrates how easily we are able to attribute consciousness to the actions of things and events that have no consciousness.
In evolutionary terms, this is quite helpful for survival, if a distant human ancestor were to attribute consciousness to movement through the grass there is no harm, even if that movement is nothing more than a gust of wind. But if he or she fails to attribute consciousness to the movement of grass, and that movement turns out to be a lion, then by elimination, this individual’s genetic legacy is removed from the progression of human evolution.
We evolved to perceive intentions in other with such effectiveness that as an unexpected side effect we also developed the ability to perceive intention even when no intent was present.
We gave lightning intentions, we guessed at the motives behind drought. We saw celestial phenomenon such as a solar eclipse or a comet in the night sky and our minds perceived intent.
Our ability to intuit a theory of mind became so highly developed, that we were able to perceive minds, intentions, and consciousness where there were none.
Disclaimer:
This is an unproven theory put forward by the founders of Eternalism. This theory should not be taken as fact. While we encourage further exploration of this theory, we are not experts in this field and as such do not recommend asserting this theory as fact.