#Theory of Mind

[perplexingluciddreams]

When I was younger, the concept that other people could have different interests to me was completely baffling.

"What do you mean, you don't even know what Merlin is?? How do you not know what a clarinet looks or sounds like?!"

"And what on earth could you like if you don't like the most perfect things in the world, the things that make everything else feel safer and make a tiny bit more sense?!? How could anyone like anything other than my own interests!?!"

I used to wonder why so many things even existed, they seemed to have no purpose to me if I was not personally interested in them.

#from the chaos of my mind #theory of mind #special interest #special interests #bbc merlin #merlin #clarinet #autism #autistic

[isaacsapphire]

I used to be surprised by how little theory of mind that some people, especially the self-identified mentally ill, possess.

On the other hand, when my father told my siblings and I a story about how he, a latelife surprise who was functionally an only sibling for purposes of this story, was in like 4th grade when he thought he would try out being a bully and beat up the little red-headed girl a year younger than him who lived with her Irish family of 7 older brothers in a house that my father had to walk past on his way to school.

She kicked the crap out of him, as one would anticipate of a girl with 7 older brothers. My siblings and I immediately told our dad, "You're lucky she beat you." He of course was all ??? so we explained; if you had beaten her, she had 7 older brothers and they'd have all beaten you twice a day for beating up their little sister. He immediately saw that we were correct and came to a new understanding of his childhood neighborhood dynamics.

#original post #theory of mind #siblings #my dad is not a great person #clearing the drafts

[blood-orange-juice]

Also this line. ASDFGH.

Childe: Hahaha, not bad at all. You were testing to see whether there were still missing fragments from Shiki Taishou's memory... You've grown, Traveler.

He keeps track of what his favorite opponents can and cannot do, and it's not just about combat. Notices pretty subtle things too.

#theory of mind #he has a lot of it #not autistic despite being changeling-coded #childe #tartaglia #also imagine the amount of scheming this guy actually does #considering his political analysis and this #everything is a chess party #despite the amount of chaos he creates #or perhaps a game of go? #I think he'd be better at go than chess

[apesoformythoughts]

#jason blakely #theory of mind #philosophy #cognition

[spooksforsammy]

My autism experience

Part three: social communication

When it comes to my social interactions difficulties, it can’t really be annoyed

I have a communication disorder/ speech impairment. I stutter, speak unusually loud/soft, usually fast and it’s really unrecognizable. On top of my speech related issues, my brain moves faster then the thoughts can leave, so what I actually want to say is usually different from what I say. This goes for text and person.

When it comes to people, I often forget they exist. I have a low sense of awareness and low theory of mind. I forget people don’t like what I like, think what I think, feel how I feel and this makes connection with others nearly impossible. I have low sense of danger and my awareness that people around me are actually people isn’t high.

When it comes to people, have to constantly remind self they real. Because I’m brain, they not, only I real.

I don’t understand body language, including my own. My body can tell people I’m mad but I’m not actually, so naturally tell people don’t bother reading my body language because not usually right. A lot of my stims are also taken as body language, but it’s not related half the time.

I don’t make eye contact. It’s not fully that hate, more like forget real person, so why do interact looking makes harder remember actual. On top of that not aware when look when turn away so if try make eye contact turns out am staring.

When around people am quiet. Because speech and low awareness and low theory of mind. Can’t interact even if want because even if one thing fine, another thing wrong.

I’m often see as “stuck in mind” or “mentally not there” and while somethings does hurt hear, is true so not often hurt. I’m imaging or thinking most the time and because forget other people, not only one it appears like body there but thats it. And that’s how it feels for me aswell.

#speech4amy #actually autistic #disabled poc #disability #medium support needs #theory of mind #long post #autism

[erikahammerschmidt]

I love a lot of things about Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, but here's one that stands out to me, though I haven't seen it talked about much.

It's the message that... your gut feelings about people are not 100% accurate.

Early in the book, the narrator, Genly Ai, has several interactions with the native people of the planet, the androgynous Gethenians, in which he gets persistent feelings that they're "dishonest" or "deceptive."

In almost any other book, in any genre, this would be clear foreshadowing of a betrayal. And this book takes place in a world where psychic powers like telepathy are explicitly said to exist-- the narrator himself has some minor abilities in that field. It would have been so easy to imply that his gut feeling of distrust would be absolute proof of real deviousness in another person's mind.

But what Le Guin did here, instead, is remarkable. Later on, in a quiet scene of contemplation, the narrator acknowledges to himself that these feelings probably come from his own preconceptions, having been raised on a world with clear gender roles.

He realizes that he unconsciously expects everyone to act like either a man or a woman (according to his ingrained sense of what that means). And the Gethenians don't have genders in any human sense, so their behavior is somehow neither and somehow both. Since his mind doesn't read this as an honest presentation of either masculinity or femininity, his feelings label it as a dishonest presentation that's hiding some secret from him.

There isn't even any plot-driven epiphany that causes him to have this realization. It just comes along naturally, once he's had the time to give it more thought.

That was especially meaningful to me. That feels like a clear message we don't often hear: Those thoughts are important to have. It's valuable to examine your biases and the feelings that come from them, even if there isn't some sudden event that forces you to examine them.

You have biases, even if you've tried very hard not to. There doesn't have to be shame in admitting it. There's just a responsibility to try and prevent those feelings from having too much influence on your actions.

And once he does think of it, that's what Genly Ai does: he's able to let go of the feeling to some degree, limiting its effect on the dealings he has with the Gethenians.

As the story progresses, of course some of the people he meets turn out to be hostile, and others turn out to be friendly. But these revelations are unconnected to which people he had suspicious gut feelings about. There's never any indication that those feelings were based on anything more than the unconscious prejudices he recognized in himself.

If more fiction portrayed gut feelings in this way-- instead of the unwritten law that they have to turn out to be True Premonitions later on, like Chekhov's Gun getting fired in the next act-- how much more self-examination and empathy and understanding could we have in this world?

#theory of mind #empathy #the left hand of darkness #ursula k. le guin #genly ai #foreshadowing #biases #prejudice #gender #androgyny #science fiction #fiction #novels #books #writing

[lingthusiasm]

Lauren: I think fiction is a really great philosophical experiment. It’s one of the reasons I really find sci-fi to be interesting is because it can push the limits of what another mind is or what another mental state is to be thinking in. One thing we didn’t get to in the bonus episode about Arkady Martine’s Memory Called Empire is that there are people who have the capacity to take on the entire previous knowledge state of someone else. I just am like what would an evidential marking system be like for a person who has multiple consciousnesses worth of evidence for a statement.

Gretchen: Like, “I know this because my original consciousness knew this” or “I know this because the consciousness that I got added to mine later in life knows this.” Oh, man.

Lauren: There’re just so many layers of potential knowledge state there. That’s the kind of sci-fi that lets me bring my linguist brain to problems of consciousness.

Excerpt from Lingthusiasm episode 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Theory of Mind'

Listen to the episode, read the full transcript, or check out more links about linguistics and society, and pragmatics.

#language #linguistics #lingthusiasm #podcasts #episode 59 #quotes #theory of mind #scifi #fiction #Arkady Martine #Memory Called Empire #lingfic

[nld-as-insights]

I’m Thinking About You

Many people, including professionals, believe that people with social learning differences from non-verbal learning disorder and autism do not think much about other people’s thoughts and feelings. While I cannot speak for everyone, I can share that that’s not true for me.

My difficulty is not in my willingness to think about what people want, but in my ability to correctly guess what people want.

For example, one time someone bumped into something and got slightly hurt. I felt their pain and tried to guess what they wanted, but I incorrectly guessed that they would be embarrassed if I made too big a deal out of their bumping into something. Then they morally judged me for not saying anything about their getting hurt!

I was thinking about them a lot, but I didn’t know what they wanted.

#neurodivergence #neurodiversity #non-verbal learning disability #non-verbal learning disorder #theory of mind #social skills #social cognition #social thinking

[sapphirecastles]

Deep compensation in Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

I recently read about a particular thing people on the spectrum do that is rarely spoken about (when comparing to masking) and gets in the way of pople getting a formal asd diagnosis: deep compensation.

Livingst and Shah (2019) and Livingst et. al (2020) have written about it (links go to open access papers) and showed how it can disguise autism.

I'll share some quotes, from those papers, that I found interesting.

However, it is likely other, more sophisticated strategies involving deep compensation exist, such as detail-focused analysis of social information, which might allow a person to solve ToM and have fairly flexible social understanding, albeit via an atypical route.

We have previously hypothesised that these may be distinct from deep compensatory strategies, which work flexibly across contexts, because they provide an alternative route to the social-cognitive ability in question (e.g. theory of mind), for example, using complex mental algorithms to predict other people’s thoughts and feelings.

This would be akin to a visually impaired person using echolocation; the strategy does not simply circumvent the impairment like a white stick does, but provides an alternative way to form a spatial representation that enables navigation skills.

Strategies that enable an alternative route to solve the cognitive difficulty in question (e.g. successfully solve theory of mind, albeit differently to neurotypical people): Flexibly use built catalogue of possible interpretations of others’ mental states, based on a combination of multiple sources of information (e.g. logic, context, facial expression, tone of voice); substitute others’ values/interests with your own or those of a TV/book character to infer their mental state

When it comes to how asd are presented esp in afab individuals, camouflaging or masking is something that is often present. (You can test here if you score high or low on these, link goes to the CAT-Q test), in a nutshell the following table describes what each behaviour is:

I have already come across most of this online (or in books) when reading about masking, but deep compensation strategies - in which a person can use a different part of the brain to perform a function, often solving intellectually what most people solve by instinct - were a new concept to me and helped me a lot, since it is often co-present with other strategies but was rarely talked about.

(Venn diagrams showing the number of a Diagnosed and b Non-diagnosed participants that reported using masking, shallow compensation, deep compensation and/or accommodation strategies. Overall, participants were more likely to report strategies across multiple types, than a single strategy type. This pattern was broadly similar between the two groups, but there was a significant group difference in shallow compensation)

The biggest take away is that, when this becomes an ingrained habit, people will be able to "understand" social cues and to deduce what people are thinking/feeling (especially when combined with acommodations in the environment) and this can come up as a failure to identify with a few traits people with asd have (but still feel autistic).

 Deep compensation (subtheme), involving complex and flexible strategies, contributed to some improvements in social cognition. Some participants reported using pattern detection and internal data modelling (gesture + facial expression + context = particular mental state) to understand others. These strategies, although hard to implement at first, could become “second nature” with time.

 To modulate compensatory efforts, many participants described compensating after logically assessing the costs versus benefits (subtheme). For example, compensation was considered worthwhile to make a positive impression towards a friendship, but not for interactions with inconsequential strangers. In superficial interactions, masking was preferred over compensatory strategies to conserve resources.

Compensation typically resulted in a lack of support in adulthood because participants looked “too normal” (subtheme). Employed participants reported that employers and colleagues held them to a neurotypical standard, which resulted in social errors not being interpreted in the context of autism. Because autistic characteristics went undetected by others, many participants reported that it was difficult to request, and they were unlikely to receive, workplace accommodations. 

“I think I observe patterns in behaviour and then try to transfer this. So if a person is behaving x/y/z types of ways, they could be feeling or thinking what so and so people had felt. It's almost a case of systematically storing little patterns in each person and the context, so I can refer to it in future.”

There is another quote that I loved but simply cannot find rn. It must be somewhere in the papers or related literature, so I recommend reading it if you are willing. I also found some great charts last night that i can't locate rn.

Personally, I was quite shocked to find out that people take social cues by instinct, because i legit thought everyone deduced what people feel/think and it was second nature to them simply because they had more social interaction and were more at ease around people and therefore social interaction becomes better with time after you learn and become familiar with different behaviours and learn how to react. I thought this was the "normal way" people go through life and some were simply more skilled at it (learning faster and better at deducing). Well, it seems it is not the case. I can't make any good summary of the papers, but I hope the quotes I shared here can help some people as they have helped me.

#asd #actually autistic #masking #accommodation #compensation #deep compensation #theory of mind #autistic adult #late diagnosed autistic #autism #autistic masking #autistic community #camouflage #late diagnosed autism

[ladysternchen]

“Have you ever, just for the tiniest moment, considered what you are doing?” “What do you mean, have I considered what I am doing? Of course I have!”

Fëanáro saw his wife glaring at him, looking back at her with equal anger. Of course he considered. Only nobody else ever did, judging by their behaviour and their apparent blindness to what was going on around them.

“Then explain to me, please, why you are prepared to tear our family apart, and your people. You. Are. King, Fëanáro!”

He scoffed.

“Do you think I don’t know that? And I’m doing what a king is supposed to do, I lead my people to safety…”

“To safety?” Nerdanel cut across him, with an incredulous look on her face. “No, lord. You’re leading them to their doom, away from safety, undoing all the work your father…”

“Atar was fooled. He was fooled and brainwashed and…”

“Brainwashed? Brainwashed? Are you out of your mind?”

Sentences were randomly finished when they were rowing, and the fact faintly amused Fëanáro. He laughed.

“Yes, you are mad. You must be, because you laugh in a situation such as this! You are tearing our marriage apart. You are murdering our children, you…”

“I? No, Nerdanel, you do that. You are the one to betray me and my sons, you decided to side with the murderers of Atar, your King, Nerdanel!”

She took a few steadying breaths, and when she spoke again, her voice was calm, which made Fëanáro hope that she might be prepared to see sense now. A hope that was swiftly destroyed.

“The Valar did not murder your father! Morgoth did. They kept us safe…”

“They wanted us as their pets. Eru knows I loved my father, but he was weak in that point. Shortsighted. Unable to see through their lies…”

“No!” Nerdanel screamed now, looked deranged. “You idiot! You are the one to believe the lies! Your father saw sense! At least until he started listening to you and valuing gems more than family!”

“Don’t you dare…”

“Dare what? Tell you the truth?”

Fëanáro reached up into his hair, tearing at it. How could Nerdanel be so stupid? He had always thought her quick-witted, but apparently, he had been mistaken. Or she was just as brainwashed by the Valar as all the rest of them were. Did she not see? That they had lured the Eldar into coming to Aman? Robbed them of their native lands? Probably so that Morgoth could have them, he thought derisively. Oh, what a clever plan that had been, taking three boys and showing them Valinor. And like children offered sweets, they had gone back and persuaded the rest to follow, that dim-witted bunch. Oh, how they irked him with their imprecision. They had no sense for subtlety, no pride in their heritage, no desire to challenge themselves each day anew. They were lazy, lulled in by the Valar. But that was over now, he, Fëanaro, would see to that.

“You are talking nonsense!” he stated coldly. 

At this, Nerdanel reached out to him, grabbing the front of his robes. He pushed her off him.

“Don’t touch me!” He snarled, yet he had overdone it, had actually pushed her to the floor. He hadn’t meant that, but then, she knew perfectly well that he didn’t like to be touched unasked. It took him a moment to realise that she was crying, which confused him. He couldn’t possibly have hurt her that much?

“Our sons, Fëanáro, our children… please let them remain here, where it is safe.” Nerdanel sobbed. “Oh, I beg you, leave at least the twins. They are so young, they still need a home…”

He only snorted.

“You, Nerdanel, chose to desert them, not I!”

And with that, he turned, never to look back.  (There again, being autistic is no excuse for being an arsehole, which Fëanor is at that time)

#all of arda is autistic #april is autism-awareness-month #fëanor #nerdanel #theory of mind #autistic perfectionism #he just doesn't see at that moment that there might be other points of view #emotional blindness #co-morbid asd and adhd #sometimes they balance each other out #not in this case #this is no excuse for his behaviour #viewing everything either black or white #no greys

[perplexingluciddreams]

I would love to collect BBC Merlin / Katie McGrath related things... it is such a strong special interest since a very young age (age 7, when I first watched BBC Merlin. I distinctly remember watching the first episode for the first time!). I always come back to it, it is the biggest comfort to me!

I can rewatch again and again and again, and not get tired or bored of it. I can think about it for hours and hours on end, nothing else crossing my mind. I couldn't even begin to count the number of hours in my life I have spent completely dedicated to Think About Merlin™️.

I was always enamoured by Katie McGrath, and loved the character of Morgana. I think this TV programme was really good for helping me develop understanding of other people's actions, even negative or harmful ones. I loved Morgana from the very beginning of the programme, so even when she "went evil" I still wanted to be on her side and understand her perspective. Yet I still had to look at the situation objectively and see what is right and wrong, what is kind or unkind, etc.

I still struggle with understanding different perspectives, and even remembering that others have their own thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc. And that others don't automatically think the same as me (when I remember that they can think), or know what is in my head (by osmosis?). But I definitely would have more of a struggle if it wasn't for this special interest developing at the age that it did.

Special interests are so important to me, not only because of the emotional importance, but also because I learn things through it. It can be used as a vehicle to teach me new concepts and skills, things that I might be completely unable to grasp without the special interest. It gives me a context that my brain already connects with, and a motivation that would not exist otherwise.

Because my special interest(s) consume so much of my brain space and thought capacity, so much of the time, they shape how I see and think about anything else. A special interest is the lens through which I view everything.

#fragments of an idea #special interest #bbc merlin #merlin #morgana #morgana pendragon #morgan le fay #katie mcgrath #autism #autistic #theory of mind

[secularprolifeconspectus]

The Mind Starts at Conception

Every abortion risks the creation of a bodily traumatized abortion survivor. The body remembers what our conscious mind does not record. It seems ridiculous to suggest to a survivor that what happened did not happen to them. Why?

Even if the body isn't harmed physically by an abortion, the stress still registers in the body-mind. You CAN stress out an embryo, literally. But then aren't epigenetics (inherited stress) part of a mind? I think so. That doesn't mean I think every cell with genes is a mind.

Gametes cease to exist upon fusion. They don't go through a stage of development; they become an entirely new thing. When their substances change there is a break in continuity between the gametes and the human minds to whom the gametes contribute genes and material. Meanwhile, a human organism doesn't cease to be at any point between fertilization and death, substantially or metaphysically.

A gamete not only ceases to be in physical substance at fertilization, (sperm in particular more or less dissolve,) but also metaphysically, in identity. For a lone gamete, the possibilities for which humans would inherit its DNA and material is an infinite set. It is unspecific. The zygote, on the other hand, is limited to about 4 potentialities. They are a specific, individual set. After the primitive streak, that set converges. Ergo, the set of a gamete is divergent, the set of a zygote is convergent.

"Markov blankets" is a theory related to the Free Energy Principle of Karl Friston that the mind is statistically boundaried to its most complete set. In other words, we can make a reasonable guess that a mind is definitely in some locations, not others.

I think we have good reason to suspect that the boundary lies somewhere between where the subsets of convergent series end (all the proprietary cells of the new person) and the divergent series begin (gametes). (We treat gamete cells more as 'your property' than as 'you'.) You could fairly speculate that the donor gamete MIGHT be in an individual's markov blanket. But if it is, it appears to be a statistical outlier. (One of these things is not like the other = outlier.) We're not unreasonable in saying gametes fall outside the line of best fit.

This shift from divergent series to convergent series seems like an extremely reasonable place to draw the metaphysical boundary of "I end and you begin". Like drawing the fault lines where two geological plates shift in different directions, but mereological! Of course, I could be wrong. If you can show me that the sets I am including pre-brain birth are meaningfully metaphysically different than the sets post-brain birth, then I'll reconsider my mereological stance. Perhaps the blanket is smaller than I think. But perhaps not.

When I ask myself, "which subsets of markov blankets act within this surprise-minimizing system" (a bare-bones definition of an individual mind,) I cannot say the donor gamete is clustered with the whole. On its own the gamete minimizes surprise in singularity, not individuality—individual, here referring to indivisible.

When I cut my hair, I don't look down and say "that's me on the floor". That hair isn't contributing to my system's perceptions in order to minimize surprise. I also wouldn't say that about my eggs if I froze them. They're divisible! But if you touch the living skin connected to my surprise-minimizing system, I'd say, "stop touching me". Not divisible. My zygote? Not divisible! Its perceptions are continuous with my system. If you tamper with a gamete, infinite individuals could inherit the effects. But once the tampered gamete fuses into a zygote, the effects are limited to an individual set of about 4 specific people. (4 because that's about how many times an embryo can bud a twin.)

An individual set of people in one blanket? You know what's cool about this?? This means up to about four people can exist as an individual set simultaneously in a single spatial and temporal location!! That's fucking neat. Yes, while these people's specific markov blankets will eventually diverge, they originate with convergent overlap. In this way, identical siblings can be said to LITERALLY share a mind, to some extent! Their markov blankets overlap!!

We cannot draw the boundary line for personhood based on substance, location, time, or ability alone. I'm drawing upon bayesian logic to make metaphysical inferences. Ergo, the pertinent question to me is not "is this a mind". Yes, I think my surprise-minimizing system, my sophisticated ability to think in predictions, is continuous with and contingent upon the rudimentary perceptive ability of my zygote.

The question is rather, why should you care? I think you should care about minds that are not like yours, but if all keeps going well, will be. I think you should care about minds that would be like yours, but all did not go well, so they are not. I think you should have unconditional regard for human minds in all forms.

#pro life #anti abortion #theory of mind #philosophy of mind #hide #disquisitions

[mandala-lore]

I'm reading a lot and curious what other people think. I'm talking broadly of conscioussness, whatever that means to you.

#polls #consciousness #philosophy #psychology #theory of mind #blog related

[theexodvs]

Mark my words, adherents of the neurodiversity movement are going to dispute whether Simon Baron-Cohen actually wrote his currently-recognized writings regarding the theory of mind and the extreme male brain hypothesis within a century of his death. However, the Eindhoven study will remain in the movement's canon, because of course it will.

#neurodiversity movement #authorship disputes #Pseudepigrapha #cult #cults #Simon Baron-Cohen #Simon Baron Cohen #canon #Extreme male brain #Theory of mind #Eindhoven Study #Apocrypha

[coalescingxnightmares]

Monkey see, monkey do So who the fuck made you? (So who the fuck made you?) It feels like a thousand years since I fell in love But when the push comes to shove Love will never be enough Love will never be enough Love will never be Enough, enough, enough, enough Time to call your bluff Cut the shit and re-adjust (Love will never be) Enough, enough, enough, enough Letting go is tough Holding on is just as rough When you're cold to the touch How much can a heart take Before a heart breaks? Attain a gaze I can't sustain while I'm Just playin' the same damn game Til’ I run away At a single drop of rain Drop it You do what you can And I'll bring the big sorrow Push it To the edge Forge a crown from the meltdown (Meltdown) Play the game Say my name bitch No Queen and no offspring All hail the endling Let your balls swing It's all the same Time to let go Time to cut the cord When love runs it's course Foolish for no one (No one) Monkey bleeds, monkey lose Trying so hard to just take this ache away And build a better place where we belong Instead I put my head through the walls Alone Love will never be Love will never be Bitch Fuck what I say Never here to stay Just a bunch of bullshit to take the pain away Temporary fix focused on the outside While the soft bits left rot away on the inside Fuck that

#kublai khan #kublai khan tx #Theory of Mind #Ep #music #jesus fucking christ?????? #did that need to fucking pop off so hard

[spooksforsammy]

See people but don’t go

People=people

Because In sad way; only really interact, engage when want someone from the people. Because in sad way, do forget they people with thoughts and feelings and opinions

Can sit in room full people, and only remember actual people when need want something. But even then, brain don’t always see as people just as someone who does something need

like middle school speech therapist. Didn’t see as person, saw as relaxation, go to when stressed will calm down, give things. Was a helper, not person.

When had friend didn’t see as person. Was art, talk to when want talk about art. Go to when want something.

Even with my boyfriend. He’s another story because see as person (now. Truthfully didn’t when first met) but do occasionally (more often then not; only remember when he remind). Will forget can be hurt so will touch face and pull hair and pinch and forget actually feels everything do. Forget it actually hurt. Thankfully he understands that but the fact sometimes randomly touch friends and they get confused and upset is problem (me not them)

But in far back of mind, know they person, i just can’t seem to always remember. Because even if in back of mind, don’t remember they don’t like what I like. Even if I’m back mind, only see as how make feel.

#speech4amy #actually autistic #disabled poc #autism #medium support needs #theory of mind