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Theory of Mind as Gradual Change Guided by
Minimalisms
Gerhard Chr. Bukow
The paper assumes that an important ability of Theory of Mind is the ability to follow
changes in thoughts. Agents are assumed to develop theories and schemas about thoughtfollowing
and they do apply different constraints on such theories like minimalisms.
However, what does it mean to follow and exactly “what” is it that agents follow? How are
changes in agents and changes in domains related? By considering thought-following in the
domain of qualitative spatial reasoning in cognitive psychology, different minimalisms and
schemas of thought-following are discussed. Finally, the paper considers the consequences of
the approach for our view on Theory of Mind in philosophy and psychology.
1. Qualitative Spatial Reasoning and Theory of Mind
Consider the following situation: two engineers work on the problem how to place some very
huge elements such that they fit into a given environment and fulfil a certain function. Think
about huge mechanical devices for a ship or so. They use some special cars or so that enable
them to move the devices. However, both of them cannot directly see what the other can see.
From their own point of view, they must reason to take the perspective of the other. Even if
they could directly see what the other can see, they must reason with respect to the function
the elements should do. In the situation, the elements are first placed wrongly so they must
move them step by step. And step by step, each of them must reason what the other sees and
consequently does in order to move the elements adequately. To sum up: one person has to
“follow” or “track” the other person step by step. But how is this tracking done, what does
perspective-taking mean in the sense of agents that track each other? Let us explore this.
Cognitive psychology has explored in detail how humans qualitatively reason about spatial
relations. The best known approach (in terms of successful prediction and explanation in
terms of cognitive architectures) uses conceptual neighborhood graphs to analyze the gradual
change of spatial relations between objects. Such graphs allow us to say something about the
conceptual distance between different situations describing the objects’ spatial relations. And
it allows us to say what (perhaps single) operations are needed to get from one situation to
another one. In the figure below you can see such a graph and the different possible “moves”
two objects could do (the original context was the use of such a graph to say something
qualitatively about the similarity of two spatial situations).
In each case, the one worker could (at least in theory) say how much distance between two
situations is, or how much distance there is between “his own” situation and the situation of
the co-worker. Of course, he does not so by directly “seeing” the others mental
representations, for example the mental models representing the spatial situation. But he can
make a plan how he would gradually change the situation such that the other can see it.