Theory of Mind
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It’s difficult—if not impossible—to know one’s own mind.
This is, in part, because the information we receive from our brains about our thinking is filtered through countless lenses that distort our perception of those processes.
We can’t fully trust what we think we perceive and know because the information we’re working with is inherently subjective, and our internal processing of that information is similarly biased.
None of which implies that we shouldn’t try to more clearly and objectively perceive and understand: it just means that even as we do, and get better and better at doing so, it’s prudent to assume that the outcome of that thinking, no matter how mighty and exhausting our efforts, will still be distorted in some known or unnoticed fashion.
The term Theory of Mind is a philosophical and psychological concept that refers to the connection between our beliefs, behaviors, and being, and the cognitive processes that take place in our brains and elsewhere.
I am only able to write these words, for instance, because—according to this concept—I have a mind that allows me to think about this theory, collect my thoughts about it, and then translate those thoughts into words, which are then further encoded into written language.
Theory of Mind, then, is vital for one’s understanding of oneself. But it’s also important for the development of an individual within a society.
The recognition of oneself as a singular entity with an internal life that is distinct and separate from all else seems to be tied to the recognition that other human beings have their own thoughts, priorities, and perspectives; their own internal lives.
This is useful in that it allows us to view other people as more than philosophical zombies, lacking consciousness and the capacity for pain, and thus, undeserving of our empathy or consideration. But it’s also important, it would seem, for the development of a socialized self: an individual with the ability to function as part of a society made up of many individuals.
As their brains mature, infants begin to understand that other humans are independent entities with their own sense of the world, motivations, and priorities.
It’s thought that this is a component of the so-called “terrible twos”: children, formerly believing that all humans are just an extension of themselves and their own desires, come to realize that the world doesn’t revolve around them, and that even their parents have other things going on. This represents a basic theory of mind—other people have other things going on in their brains and lives—that can be harsh medicine if you’re accustomed to subconsciously assuming you’re the center of the universe and that all other humans are just extensions of you.
Most of us, eventually, come to tacitly understand that other people experience things differently from how we experience things, and the next-step logical supposition is that what’s seemingly true to us might not be seemingly true to other people, and vice-versa.
This can lead to the painful, but arguably quite valuable secondary realization that reality is often subjective, and some of our beliefs may be predicated on false or incomplete information.
Interestingly, there’s some evidence that what we loosely refer to as “theory of mind” may be the result of cognitive components or processes that don’t develop in everyone in the same way.
The term “neurotypical” is generally used to refer to people who do not have a medical literature-defined developmental disorder like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, or developmental coordination disorder.
This is a flawed term, but it’s been commonly accepted by the neurodiversity movement and the medical world as being useful, even if it’s not 100% accurate in terms of semantics and neuroscience.
That said, within this designatory context, folks who have non-neurotypical brain setups, like those who fall somewhere on the autism spectrum, have been found to be less likely to have a subconscious theory of mind-based awareness than people with more neurotypical arrangements.
In practice, this means that people who are on the spectrum may be less reflexively conscious of how other people are thinking, feeling, and responding to stimuli. They may, in other words, be less likely to just “get” how other people are thinking when compared to folks who are not on the spectrum.
Importantly, this doesn’t imply that non-neurotypical brains are inferior or superior to neurotypical brains, it just means that there may be other ways of structuring the brain that favor different ways of seeing things.
This recognition could help us develop a broader sense of what’s normal as we muddle toward a more complete theory of what the mind is and how it works, while also providing us with one more lens through which we can view ourselves and others, in the meantime.
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