Theory of mind?

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It is a preditorial universe, and you have a preditor for a pet. You should have seen that coming.

I had a cat that used to put mice in the bathtub and play with them until they were dead, because they couldn't get out easily. Once in a while she would eat the legs off. You could hear her crunching on them.

Yep, they are very good hunters, very effective predators. For their size, more effective than just about any other common predator, unless you count insect-eating bats, which are totally amazing.

It is my belief, though, that when we domesticated cats, we actually accentuated their tendency to hunt small animals. After all, their primary function was to keep mice and rats out of food stores--they probably enabled our early civilizations to exist and saved many human lives by protecting the food from vermin. We would have preferred cats who were good hunters, who would hunt even when they were well-fed (and thus strong and healthy and even more effective at hunting), and this is the trait that we see in our domestic cats today. When we keep them as pets and they no longer need to hunt, we need to provide them hunting-style play to keep them engaged and occupied, or they will very likely get into trouble, stalking our feet or climbing our curtains!

Cats which live indoors, like mine do, can only hunt the small insects and occasional mouse that makes its way indoors, so they need toys and a human willing to play with them. And I certainly don't mind! If anything, playing with my cats is one of the high points of being a cat owner. It's a lot better than letting them out and worrying that a car (or a drunk frat boy) will result in an early death. Certainly their natural environment is outdoor and semi-outdoor environments like barns and warehouses, but they can live indoors just like humans can--our natural environment is outdoors, as hunter-gatherers, and we're fine sitting in offices. They may be adapted to the outdoors, but they're not adapted to the way we've changed the outdoors--they're not adapted to poisons, cars, and sadistic cat-haters. So the best place for a cat, if you're not in a peaceful, cat-loving neighborhood with little traffic, is probably indoors with a lot of toys, a window seat, and a human to play with.

And with an indoor cat you don't have to worry about any mice in your home! At least with many cats, because a lot are good mousers. My cat, I actually am struggling with her weight, because she mouses so well, even if I reduce her food she still isn't losing weight, because she just eats the mice. But the house doesn't have mice this way! She's happy inside with me, she makes this clear to me, and she's great to me, and the only animals she kills are mice, and she eats them and uses them for nutrition, which is healthier for her in some ways than just using the cat food we give her.

I really liked the description of Theory of Mind that was given at the beginning of the thread; it made me realized how impaired my ToM really is. I knew it was impaired (I supplement a lot with logic; I treat people like logic puzzles), but I didn't realize how much so. I frequently drop into not "because you like cookies", but "because people in general like cookies". For me it is.

You are sad, I feel bad you are sad, I want to make you feel better, I'll give you a cookie because people like cookies and if people get things they like they feel better.

With my boyfriend I have a list of specific things I do to make him feel better, that I know are things he likes, but I had to ask for a list of things because I got so upset that I didn't know what to do. So for him its individualized, but its individualized with a list that was told to me and I use that list.

I actually do if I get overloaded enough, forget that people don't know what I'm thinking, which can get messy when you expect people to fix problems you never told them about.

I never tell him off but I have 'stolen' mice from him before before he manages to kill them and I then leave them in a safe place to hopefully recover from the stress.
I don't bury the dead animals either but usually throw them in the woods next door in the assumption it might make a meal for something. He catches so many things I would have a proper little pet cemetary in my garden.
He was the runt of the litter and I sort of acquired him. Sorry, for de-railing the thread. As you were

This idea about ToM is nutz. I know why. It has a chaotic nature about it. It is filled with unknowable things that can never be defined or understood by this way of thinking. It is a contridiction, a trick, a lie, a fairy tail. It has no weight, no structure, no time, no value, and no purpose that will make it entirely correct. It is unnatural. It is not real. It is a one way street. It states that people are wrong if they don't think a certain way. It states that you should know what others are thinking. No one knows what the five year old is thinking and why. Even if they ask. When they get old enough, they probably will not remember. No one knows how I think. No one knows how you think, what you think about, or why. People can ask, and you may tell them. It can be right, wrong, true, or a lie. It may not be understandable by you. You may never be able to comprehend how another person thinks even if you ask a bunch of trick questions, and make them take tests. There is a billion reasons why, and you are not going to know them because you are not that person. That is the truth.

These people believe that they can know how an autistic person thinks, when they are not autistic. How a savant thinks if they are not a savant. They cannot even get a general idea. Not even with questions, and tests. Not really. If they knew, they would be that way.

As an NT computer programmer, my description of a Theory of Mind would be a model which you can use to predict other people's behaviour. In reality for NTs, this is likely to be a set of models, not just 1. I think we tend to build a model for each person, initially based on first impressions and then fleshed out as we learn more about the person. This data is compared to behaviour from other people who we have got to know over the years and the resultant model is used to imagine how this person may be feeling and may respond to a specific situation. If an NT is good at this then they can have particularly detailed models for individuals who they know well and if they put the time and effort into it then they can be quite accurate.

As far as I understand, for an Aspie, the same (or a very similar) model is usually applied to everyone, pretty much based on your own views and experiences. Theory of Mind is the ability to simulate someone else's thoughts in your own mind based on what you know of them rather than what you would think/feel.

Theory of Mind is not mindreading. It's not about knowing what others are thinking. It's about inferring what other people are thinking, doing or might do. Those thing are inferred from behavior.

I believe that ToM represent a wide spectrum of abilitties:

-Core: separate others' mind from own's.

-Low-order: predict behavior, infer purpose of behavior...

-High-order: match behavior to mental states, predict feedback...

This is my approach...



...because doing what you described here, in real-time (say during the course of a conversation), is just too difficult. I am thinking that I could possibly do this if I have a “PAUSE” button. And, could stop things in the middle, fully analyze the situation, etc.

Ultimately, I believe Theory of Mind is simply an example of a more general disorder with Complex Information Processing. The more I think about my own issues with Complex Information Processing, the more I understand the issues I personally experience when interfacing with the world.

Yes! And I would need to write it down, so I can look at it visually, and see the logic of who is thinking what, and why. It's like complex math, that's too difficult to just do inside your head.

Interestingly, when I "replay" such conversations after the fact, I can remember the words, but I don't remember anything about the body language (unless it's obvious, like someone slamming a door or pounding a table). Probably, because it is simply too much unstructured information to collect at once.

If the information is structured, in the way that my brain catalogs information (such as a lecture in a classroom setting), that's one thing.

But if not, my brain just shuts down (not knowing how to process the information). I think that's why I try to control things. So that I can control the flow of information. So, I can properly digest it. As opposed to listening, not understanding and simply saying "ya ya".

I am always amazed when people accurately tell me how I'm feeling without me telling them , and explains how I feel when I may not have even noticed, knowed,or thought of at the time .

I've allways thought the only way to know how someone feels or thinks is to ask them yourself.

Does this mean that people with a good theory of mind have collected a lot of data about an individual in specific situations and remember this specific data of this individual in each specific situation?

Does this mean that people with a good theory of mind have collected a lot of data about an individual in specific situations and remember this specific data of this individual in each specific situation?[/quote]

No. What it means is that people are guessing about somekind of relative thought. People believe it is a "good enough" idea, because it is the best they can do. It is easy to get right, for some, because most people have been assimilated. "Psychics" have been using the same tactics forever. It is like a game gone science.

The big deal about autistic children not being good at it, comes from the fact that they are not good at playing games. Gamers come from a different breed of people that invent things like ToM.

This is a very wonderful message, and a wonderful thread, imo.

I never heard of this concept until I was on WP about three months or so, but did not first read about it here. One of my daughters who is autistic told me about it, and it has been quite helpful. For instance I tend to jump to conclusions that people will understand what I am saying because I assume they already know the prerequisite material or have had the prerequisite experience, which would be kind of the same experience I have had. but neither of these is probably the case as I have had a very unique set of life circumstances and opportunities. Though at this point I am quite able to make a distinction, often I do not fine tune it enough, and whenever I begin to realize I am functioning from an underdeveloped theory of mind in a specific instance, it was like having the wool pulled off my eyes.

In terms of explaining ideas, I did understand a few years ago that I tend to idolize people's ability to understand what I am saying and that this was not being true to these people, so I already understood the concept, but the theory of mind idea was quite helpful.

The main thing, imo, at least in the beginning, for those who want to develop a more mature theory of mind is to see ones own theory of mind kind of missing the mark when it does. Because the habit is so deeply ingrained that is admittedly kind of hard to see, but possible....then one begins to develop a more comprehensive picture of oneself and how ones own thinking is skipping steps, perhaps because facing the fact of ones own feeling and simply feeling it is too painful, and after a few glimpses are caught, one can begin to focus more and more on listening to and accepting other people.

Yes, infantile is the right word and touches on what in psychology is referred to as object relations. Some people have not been given the range of experience by their primary caretaker to be able to make a bridge between self and other. To find oneself in such a condition is very sad, and the way out is not easy.

Yes, supposedly:-) The use of the word 'automatic' with the apostrophes around it is very astute. The person is kind of giving ujp something about himself in order to understand what the other person is doing, and in this area some kind of intuitive exchange occurs, the result of which is very gratifying, and when a young child begins to experiment in making this kind of exchange between self and other with satisfying results, then he is motivated to learn how to do it more and more, and his developing sense of self becomes built and expanded upon this foundation of trusting others and feeling okay..

Below is a quote from Uta Frith:

Last edited by Rocket123 on 08 Mar 2014, 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.