#theoryofmind — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #theoryofmind, aggregated by home.social.
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There is a fundamental flaw in the idea that consciousness can be defined "functionally" (i.e. "it is what it does").
Consciousness is a purely internal state - we infer it in others through communication, but it is fundamentally something someone experiences about themself, not something defined by how other people perceive them.
Because it is an internally defined property, it *cannot* be defined on the basis of "what it does". It must be defined, at least in part, on the basis of "what it knows".
To take a simple example from robotics:
I have a robot with one gripper and two sensors that moves through its environment. One sensor (A) tells the robot whether its gripper is full or empty. The other sensor (B) tells the robot whether or not it is in the presence of something its gripper can pick up (an object, P).The robot has three rules.
1. If no P, move in a random direction.
2. If gripper is empty and P sensed, pick up object and then move in a random direction.
3. If gripper is full and P sensed, drop object and then move in a random direction.This robot has no concept of anything in its world except P/not P, gripper full/empty, and "move in a random direction".
Yet, externally, the effect of these rules is that the robot builds piles of objects [1].
Attributing consciousness to an LLM is the equivalent of saying our robot *intends* to build piles of objects.
1/3
Triggering article: https://www.slowboring.com/p/nobody-knows-what-theyre-talking
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There is a fundamental flaw in the idea that consciousness can be defined "functionally" (i.e. "it is what it does").
Consciousness is a purely internal state - we infer it in others through communication, but it is fundamentally something someone experiences about themself, not something defined by how other people perceive them.
Because it is an internally defined property, it *cannot* be defined on the basis of "what it does". It must be defined, at least in part, on the basis of "what it knows".
To take a simple example from robotics:
I have a robot with one gripper and two sensors that moves through its environment. One sensor (A) tells the robot whether its gripper is full or empty. The other sensor (B) tells the robot whether or not it is in the presence of something its gripper can pick up (an object, P).The robot has three rules.
1. If no P, move in a random direction.
2. If gripper is empty and P sensed, pick up object and then move in a random direction.
3. If gripper is full and P sensed, drop object and then move in a random direction.This robot has no concept of anything in its world except P/not P, gripper full/empty, and "move in a random direction".
Yet, externally, the effect of these rules is that the robot builds piles of objects [1].
Attributing consciousness to an LLM is the equivalent of saying our robot *intends* to build piles of objects.
1/3
Triggering article: https://www.slowboring.com/p/nobody-knows-what-theyre-talking
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Joan den ostiralean, Raymundo Báez Mendoza (Georg August Universität Göttingen, Alemania) izan genuen Achucarron, portaera sozialaren eta Theory of Mind delakoaren oinarri neuronalak aztertzen dituen mintegi batean. Eskerrik asko zure ikerketa gurekin partekatzeagatik! 👏
#AchucarroSeminars #Neuroscience #SocialCognition #TheoryOfMind
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Is empathy political?
A thread on autistic empathy.A still-quite-popular belief about autistic people is that we lack empathy.
I think this is faulty logic.
Here's why:A thread 🧵
1/10
#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent
#DoubleEmpathy #TheoryOfMind -
Is empathy political?
A thread on autistic empathy.A still-quite-popular belief about autistic people is that we lack empathy.
I think this is faulty logic.
Here's why:A thread 🧵
1/10
#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent
#DoubleEmpathy #TheoryOfMind -
Most people assume everyone else thinks like them. They don’t. And your brain knows this - but only from around age 4. #Psychology #CognitiveScience #TheoryOfMind #Neuroscience #MentalHealth
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Most people assume everyone else thinks like them. They don’t. And your brain knows this - but only from around age 4. #Psychology #CognitiveScience #TheoryOfMind #Neuroscience #MentalHealth
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@ngate It's like the AI, not being alive and having no Free Will, won't behave like a human being should.....
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@ngate It's like the AI, not being alive and having no Free Will, won't behave like a human being should.....
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Have you wondered where the claim that autistic people lack empathy came from?
The “jellyfish” study (2011) was influential in this, as it concluded that autistic people lacked Theory of Mind & capacity for moral reasoning.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-01-autistic-mind.html
In one of the fictional scenarios given to participants, Janet tells a friend it’s safe to swim with jellyfish. She believes they’re harmless. The friend is stung and dies.
⬇️
#Autism #Empathy #Neurodiversity #TheoryofMind #ActuallyAutistic
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Have you wondered where the claim that autistic people lack empathy came from?
The “jellyfish” study (2011) was influential in this, as it concluded that autistic people lacked Theory of Mind & capacity for moral reasoning.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-01-autistic-mind.html
In one of the fictional scenarios given to participants, Janet tells a friend it’s safe to swim with jellyfish. She believes they’re harmless. The friend is stung and dies.
⬇️
#Autism #Empathy #Neurodiversity #TheoryofMind #ActuallyAutistic
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The phrase I see you is the canonical ritual of a perceptual collapse. Theory of Mind (ToM), the dominant human interface for social understanding, functions not as a window into others but as an Epistemic Mirror that projects the observer's own operational logic.
#TheoryOfMind #Catch22 #DoubleBind #Aphantasia #AIBias https://open.substack.com/pub/cristinagherghel/p/the-aphantasia-catch-22-in-theory -
Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Freue mich, dass auf dem #Blogpost der m.E. wichtige Dialog über die menschliche #Religionspsychologie und #KI begonnen hat.
Denn seit Jahrzehntausenden (mindestens) gehen Menschen parasoziale Beziehungen mit Entitäten wie Gestirnen, Bäumen, Bergen, später Skulpturen ein, in die sie #Geist hineinlesen. Die #Psychologie nennt diese starke Tendenz #TheoryofMind (TOM) , deutsch #Mentalisierung. Mensch-KI-Beziehungen werden keine Ausnahmen bleiben, sondern zur Regel werden. https://scilogs.spektrum.de/natur-des-glaubens/blume-ince-42-antisemitismus-gegen-george-soros-die-ambivalenz-von-ki-kokons/#comment-182670
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Freue mich, dass auf dem #Blogpost der m.E. wichtige Dialog über die menschliche #Religionspsychologie und #KI begonnen hat.
Denn seit Jahrzehntausenden (mindestens) gehen Menschen parasoziale Beziehungen mit Entitäten wie Gestirnen, Bäumen, Bergen, später Skulpturen ein, in die sie #Geist hineinlesen. Die #Psychologie nennt diese starke Tendenz #TheoryofMind (TOM) , deutsch #Mentalisierung. Mensch-KI-Beziehungen werden keine Ausnahmen bleiben, sondern zur Regel werden. https://scilogs.spektrum.de/natur-des-glaubens/blume-ince-42-antisemitismus-gegen-george-soros-die-ambivalenz-von-ki-kokons/#comment-182670
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Emotional Intelligence and the Brain: Navigating Social Cues
#TheoryOfMind #SocialCognition #Neuroscience #EmotionalIntelligence #Mentalization #BrainScience #EmotionalRegulation #FalseBeliefs #SocialSkills #UnderstandingOthers
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Inside the Brain: The Neural Dance of Thinking, Feeling, and Connecting
#Neuroscience #SocialBrain #TheoryOfMind #Empathy #BrainScience #MindAndEmotion #NeuralNetworks #SelfAwareness #SocialCognition #BrainTips
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19. Eighteenth and last presentation is by Ananya Gandhi on #TheoryOfMind in #buyer #seller #interactions
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Third day of the Konstanz School of Collective Behaviour 2025 (#KSCB2025) starts with a keynote talk by Peter Dayan on #GameTheory, #TheoryOfMind and how they impact #SocialGames such as #DictatorGames and #UltimatumGames.
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If this is too thinky, then, "Nyah nyah--I'm scissors, you're glue...wait...now we're BOTH all sticky!"
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If this is too thinky, then, "Nyah nyah--I'm scissors, you're glue...wait...now we're BOTH all sticky!"
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I believe a philosophy that can be called wide-ass. Everyone contributes their thoughts, and beliefs, and actions to the wide-ass philosophy.
My personal philosophies are more wise-ass. But I don't think that navel-gazing from the inside, or head-up-the-ass philosophies will lead to useful enlightenment.
I could be wrong... It wouldn't be the 1st time...
#Philosophy #TheoryOfMind #Self #TheOther #SelvesCreateReality
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I believe a philosophy that can be called wide-ass. Everyone contributes their thoughts, and beliefs, and actions to the wide-ass philosophy.
My personal philosophies are more wise-ass. But I don't think that navel-gazing from the inside, or head-up-the-ass philosophies will lead to useful enlightenment.
I could be wrong... It wouldn't be the 1st time...
#Philosophy #TheoryOfMind #Self #TheOther #SelvesCreateReality
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Judith Rosen is opening The First International Conferencia on Anticipatory Systems #bio #biology #philsci #complexity #Rosen #comp #phy #sci #science #theory #TheoryOfMind #theory #mind #psy #psychology #epidemiology #medicine #ecology #evo #evolution #evolutionarybiology #evo
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Judith Rosen is opening The First International Conferencia on Anticipatory Systems #bio #biology #philsci #complexity #Rosen #comp #phy #sci #science #theory #TheoryOfMind #theory #mind #psy #psychology #epidemiology #medicine #ecology #evo #evolution #evolutionarybiology #evo
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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#Apes point out hidden treats only when #humans are #unaware of their #location.
❛❛ It's a #sign of a #cognitive ability called #Theory of #Mind. ❜❜🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPD9jqXEv7Y 2025 Feb 04
🔗 https://www.SmithsonianMag.com/smart-news/when-bonobos-know-what-you-dont-theyll-tell-you-its-a-sign-of-a-cognitive-ability-called-theory-of-mind-180985991/ 2025 Feb 05
🔗 https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind … #TheoryOfMind#Community #TimeTravel #Research #primates #mammalian #intelligence #interspecies #communitication #psychology #biology #science #Kronodon
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#Apes point out hidden treats only when #humans are #unaware of their #location.
❛❛ It's a #sign of a #cognitive ability called #Theory of #Mind. ❜❜🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPD9jqXEv7Y 2025 Feb 04
🔗 https://www.SmithsonianMag.com/smart-news/when-bonobos-know-what-you-dont-theyll-tell-you-its-a-sign-of-a-cognitive-ability-called-theory-of-mind-180985991/ 2025 Feb 05
🔗 https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind … #TheoryOfMind#Community #TimeTravel #Research #primates #mammalian #intelligence #interspecies #communitication #psychology #biology #science #Kronodon
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Humans have the capacity to be aware of their own thoughts while understanding that others are also thinking. This is key to social groups. #theoryofmind
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Humans have the capacity to be aware of their own thoughts while understanding that others are also thinking. This is key to social groups. #theoryofmind
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"Theory of mind"
And why it isn't all it's cracked up to be.
A thread.
🧵
#Autistic #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent #AuDHD #ADHD #Neurodiversity #TheoryOfMind #Psychology #DoubleEmpathy
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"Theory of mind"
And why it isn't all it's cracked up to be.
A thread.
🧵
#Autistic #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent #AuDHD #ADHD #Neurodiversity #TheoryOfMind #Psychology #DoubleEmpathy
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Bonobos erkennen Unwissenheit anderer. Auch unsere nächsten Verwandten beherrschen die „Theory of Mind”. #Bonobo #Menschenaffen #TheoryofMind #Tierverhalten
https://www.scinexx.de/news/biowissen/bonobos-erkennen-unwissenheit-anderer/ -
Bonobos erkennen Unwissenheit anderer. Auch unsere nächsten Verwandten beherrschen die „Theory of Mind”. #Bonobo #Menschenaffen #TheoryofMind #Tierverhalten
https://www.scinexx.de/news/biowissen/bonobos-erkennen-unwissenheit-anderer/ -
One of my dear friends and an excellent researcher in #bilingual development and #TheoryOfMind just published a paper!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885201424001254
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One of my dear friends and an excellent researcher in #bilingual development and #TheoryOfMind just published a paper!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885201424001254
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Michael Rescorla has revised his SEP-entry on The Compurational Theory of Mind (CTM), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/
A decade ago I thougt this theory would surely be passé with respect to understanding human cognitive processes. That may have been with the previous edition of the entry (by Steven Horst) and/or IEP's take on the subject (by Marcin Milkowski), https://iep.utm.edu/computational-theory-of-mind/
Perhaps it is time to give CTM another try, if something else doesn't pop up to my extremely short and tardy reading list?
#sep #revised #ctm #mind #theoryOfMind #computation #cognition #philosophyOfMind #philosophy
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Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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🤩 Good news für internationale Post-Docs. In seiner neuen Rolle als Henriette Herz #Scout der @HumboldtStiftung nominiert @abulling drei Nachwuchsforschende für seine Forschungsgruppe @collaborativeai an der #UniStuttgart.
👩💻 Deutschland und europaweit ist Bullings Gruppe eine der wenigen, die interdisziplinär in der #MenschMaschineInteraktion und #KognitivenModellierung forscht. 🤖 Das Ziel: Intelligente #Assistenzsysteme, die sich in ihr Gegenüber hineinversetzen und so mit uns im Alltag, in der medizinischen #Diagnostik oder in der #Pflege menschenähnlich zusammenarbeiten können. #TheoryofMind
🌐Ein Highlight der Stuttgarter #Informatik: direkte Zusammenarbeit mit den #Exzellenzclustern #SimTech und #IntCDC sowie der @stuttgart.
👉 https://sohub.io/y4z0 -
Was beim Hineindenken in unserem Gehirn passiert. Grübeln über Mitmenschen erfordert Teamwork alter und neuer Hirnareale. #Gehirn #TheoryofMind #Psychologie #Perspektive #Neurowissen
https://www.scinexx.de/news/psychologie/was-beim-hineindenken-in-unserem-gehirn-passiert/ -
Are online meetings reducing our collective intelligence? New research says maybe. A close look at the experiment tells a different story.
#online #meetings #CollectiveIntelligence #TeamWork #TheoryOfMind #eventprofs
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Humans are ALL brothers and sisters. (Everyone is actually both.) Our perceptions of reality are diverse, sometimes alien to each others'. We never step in the same river even ONCE. It takes all kinds. Kant said "percepts without concepts are blind, but concepts without percepts are empty". We are each a child of the universe.
But modern american Republicans are assholes--they're twisted and horribly weird.