Damn you, Theory of Mind!
Arguably one of humanity’s greatest powers is our ability to attribute states of mind to other people, and to understand that these may be different from our own. But it is a double-edged sword…
US president Joe Biden’s announcement, on Sunday 21st July, that he would no longer pursue his candidacy for the presidency, was certainly headline-grabbing. It was also and, for many at least, as predictable as the sunrise the next morning — it had increasingly become a matter of when, rather than of whether he would withdraw. What was intriguing was how many of his copartisans in the Democratic leaning population considered his decision to take a step back as a selfless act of heroism. Many of them had not long ago joined a growing group of Democratic representatives, senators and supporters, calling for his withdrawal (and no doubt castigating him for his stubbornness). On the opposing side, Biden was seen as weak and cowardly, and some saw the hand of the “backroom elites”, the “men in grey suits” who “plunged the knife in”. How on earth could all these people know so clearly what Joe Biden was thinking?
Mind readers
The concept of the Theory of Mind (ToM) finds its origin in research by two primatologists, David…
