Comprehensivist Wednesdays: What Are We Actually Doing When We Read Minds?
Details
In this meetup we will explore what happens when we try to detect a mind we cannot interview. Our starting point is Michael Corballis's article "The Uniqueness of Human Recursive Thinking," which argues that the ability to think about thinking may be the one feature that sets our species apart. Theory of mind is the ability to imagine what is going on inside another creature's head. We usually treat it as a social talent, the thing we use whenever we read a face or catch a bluff. But to think about what someone else is thinking is to fold one thought inside another, and that recursive folding is what Corballis puts at the center of the human mind. "I think you must be thinking that I'm an idiot" is not one thought but a thought nested inside a thought.
Our conversation focuses on the gap this leaves open. When an animal acts as if it understands another mind, is it truly thinking about what the other is thinking, or has it simply learned behaviors that work? This matters because humans seem to do something far more extensive. If our ability to understand other minds is so developed while it remains uncertain in every other species, the real question is no longer whether it is possible, but what we are actually doing when we do it, how deeply that process can build on itself, and why no other animal has clearly shown the same ability.
The Uniqueness of Human Recursive Thinking
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qpLc0oVJGtZg-G3LOpzblNIF44deLlfP/view?usp=sharing
Tactical Deception - (for Informational Purposes)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19CcQVRojsa9bRQSJI5S6oPmII4Kr2gEb/view?usp=sharing
*****************************************************************************
CJ Fearnley's book "Collaborating for Comprehensivity," is a unique exploration of comprehensive thinking, inquiry, and collaboration, is now available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and free PDF formats.
- The free PDF version can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bapsUhFtRDSPdAW6zRBe7omBlcghz-yi/
- Available on Amazon Kindle for the lowest price Amazon allows of $0.99 here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1K18B5/
- Available as a paperback on Amazon for the lowest price Amazon allows of $8.31 here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D11GHC9V/
************************************************************
Welcome to the series "Comprehensivist Wednesdays." Transdisciplinarity, Renaissance humanism, homo universalis, and Polymathy are some of the ways of describing this approach which Buckminster Fuller called Comprehensivity and described as “macro-comprehensive and micro-incisive.”
See the calendar at https://www.meetup.com/52LivingIdeas/events/calendar/
We record all our Meetups and post them on YouTube. Feel free to keep your video on or off as you prefer. Watch Past Meetups here.
Welcome to "Comprehensivist Wednesdays"
Explore transdisciplinarity, Renaissance humanism, homo universalis, and polymathy in ways Buckminster Fuller described as “macro-comprehensive and micro-incisive.”
A Meetup Every Day, Every Week, For Everyone!
Join us every weekday at 8 pm or 9 pm ET. We record all our meetups and post them on YouTube. Feel free to keep your video on or off as you participate.
Watch Past Meetups here.