Robert Seyfarth: Theory of Mind

Robert Seyfarth talks about how children develop a 'theory of mind'.

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Produced by the Richard Dawkins Foundation and R. Elisabeth Cornwell
Filmed & edited by Josh Timonen

• Category

  Science & Technology

[IStopAllNonsense]

Do you believe in dinosaurs, cells, photosynthesis, etc.? Those are all theories. A theory is a widely accepted answer to a scientific problem backed up by hundreds of facts, years of research, and many scientific minds. Theories will be changed over time; updated, improved, etc. This is because science is ever growing and changing.

[debaser71]

perhaps you should look into some of the studies that absolutely show that children do answer differently depending on HOW (yeah i can use caps too) you ask them .... and nevermind that some children even get the answer right with the odd "unnatural" phrasing ... scanning over your posts leads me to believe that you have no idea what you are talking about

[XiaoJieBU]

nice

[75egcg]

Roger has a theory of mind of the 3 year old. He probably thought the Sally-Anne story's answer was in the box.

"To me Theory means what someone thinks it could be, so what they're talking about is rubbish" Oh really? So roger apparently DOESN'T believe that other people can have differing knowledge and thoughts.

[UWEandrew]

I'm not going to answer your question because you could be an illusion of my mind! Help!

[somerandomer]

He also seems to be using the fact that a three year old can't do this but a six year old can to claim that theory of mind is something that is somehow learned as opposed to innate. It could be responded that just because something isn't present at birth doesn't mean it isn't an innate capacity. No-one thinks that going through puberty is anything other than an innate mechanism, for example, but it happens long after birth.

[samm1809]

Richard Dawkins seems to be quite interested in matters involving philosophy of mind. It really is the most interesting field of philosophy at the moment. Moral philosophy has basically become speculation, political philosophy is rife with pretentious fools who grab onto a doctrine and don't let go, and so on.

[MikeAbyss]

It's more informational, and is considered a big milestone for children. This theory carries on throughout our lives from when we learned it to when we die.