We encountered the term “theory of mind” in passing in the previous chapter in relation to apes. Now let me explain it more fully. It is a technical term that is widely used in the cognitive sciences, from philosophy to primatology to clinical psychology. It refers to your ability to attribute intelligent mental beingness to other people: to understand that your fellow humans behave the way they do because (you assume) they have thoughts, emotions, ideas, and motivations of more or less the same kind as you yourself possess. In other words, even though you cannot actually feel what it is like to be another individual, you use your theory of mind to automatically project intentions, perceptions, and beliefs into the minds of others. In so doing you are able to infer their feelings and intentions and to predict and influence their behavior. Calling it a theory can be a little misleading, since the word “theory” is normally used to refer to an intellectual system of statements and predictions, rather than in this sense, where it refers to an innate, intuitive mental faculty.

Ramachandran, V.S. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. (via carvalhais)

I have a relatively advanced plot for a scifi book called ‘Theory Of Mind’. I hope to write it in 2013.

Source: carvalhais

25 November 2012 72 wildcat2030

Notes

  1. projectpeace reblogged this from hellsangels-
  2. deaf-songbird reblogged this from wildcat2030
  3. demonikangel1037 reblogged this from wildcat2030
  4. herguanuni reblogged this from visualturn
  5. castylist reblogged this from visualturn
  6. visualturn reblogged this from inwrdbound
  7. indelibly-nostalgic reblogged this from stoweboyd
  8. bounioq reblogged this from stoweboyd
  9. fionaelle reblogged this from commondense
  10. inwrdbound reblogged this from wildcat2030
  11. peachypreach reblogged this from commondense
  12. lame-ape reblogged this from stoweboyd
  13. magandayaya reblogged this from stoweboyd
  14. stoweboyd reblogged this from wildcat2030
  15. bubbaandbubbalicious reblogged this from commondense
  16. bennyhoneybee reblogged this from wildcat2030
  17. hellsangels- reblogged this from 404linknotfound
  18. empress-lord-of-bs reblogged this from wildcat2030
  19. automatic-bushka reblogged this from wildcat2030
  20. kurma-rh reblogged this from wildcat2030

← Previous Post Next Post →

About

Web anthropologist, futurist, author. My focus is the future, and the tectonic forces pushing business, media, and society into an unclear and accelerating future. more.

Working on longer format projects, Sign up for the newsletter.

GigaOM Research analyst and curator.

Also writing beaconstreets.com.

Contact me. or ask me a question.



My Vizify profile.

Socialogy

  • John Hagel | John offers up some great insights, like the fact that passion is lower the larger that businesses get.

  • Euan Semple | A chat with my old pal, and the author of Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do

  • Will McInnes | The author of Culture Shock and managing director of Nixon/McInnes

  • Jennifer Magnolfi | An interview with the woman who said, 'Work is not a place you go, it's a thing you do'.

    • Hot Now

  • What Drives Us? | A draft chapter of my book, discussing motivations, Maslow's hierarchy, and fluidarity.

  • Socialogy: Interview With John Hagel | I Speak with Joh Hagel about the innovation at the edge.

  • Complex organisation arises from webs of interaction among causal factors | So, it turns out that DNA is, in fact, a great metaphor for business culture, but only after you realize that DNA is not a few hundred off-on switches, but instead a universe of unknowable complexities, that we can interact with, and understand at some abstract cartoonish level, but not control, and never fully comprehend.

  • Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy’s Last Safe Haven | Paul Ford

  • Innovators Get Better With Age | Companies make a mistake by relying too much on the innoations of the young, because Nobel laureats don't come into their prime until their 50s.

    • Oldie

  • Infodemics | 2009 | Passing incomplete or inaccurate information about some risk event can make people take actions that increase the damage of the event itself.

    • Lynx theme created by Andrew Stichbury for Tumblr.