Theory of mind

[Cc'ed the blog]

Theory of mind appears to be all about studying people's perceptions of other people's minds, as it relates to things like predicting their actions. Immediately we think of the Halting Problem from automata theory, and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, which essentially come down to the fact that finite systems cannot analyze arbitrarily complicated systems: to analyze an arbitrarily complex system you must be arbitrarily (and, in the limit, infinitely) complex yourself. Thus, while anybody may have a theory of mind, theories about their "theories of mind" will inevitably be simplistic abstractions, or in other words models, or in other words lies, at some level. (Confusion may arise here from using the same word "theory" to refer both to a specific, scientific theory of a process and also to an individual's understanding of phenomena around him, i.e. thinking beings.)

Anyway, I don't see theory-theory and simulation-theory as being mutually exclusive. My personal experience is that my simulation-theory is generally poor compared to my theory-theory; when I give girls guy-advice, I generally feel it's of better quality when I do it based on material I've read (like Chris Carter's books on attracting men) and not on my own feelings (which could mostly only ever help attract guys like me and is of extremely limited utility to your average girl). There are some edge cases, such as girls who want to attract smart guys or guys in the Church or other things that bring their target closer to me, and in those cases I'll use more of my own feelings. Anyway, my point is that you can have a theory-theory which gives different predictions than simulation would. At the same time, it's really nice and relaxing to deal with people for whom you can leave the theory-theory on the shelf—simulation theory is much less cognitively demanding—and that's why dealing with Jenn or, to an extent, Tara or Barbara is so much less draining than dealing with the average person. Even the ones I like, like Bristy Burtenshaw. On the other hand, if you didn't have a theory-theory you'd make a lot of bad decisions about how to treat people.

(Caveat: Tara & Dathan is probably only about 25% similar to me. That's what marriage does, doubles the size of the gene pool.)

-Max

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"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.