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THEORY OF MIND AS GRADUAL CHANGE GUIDED BY MINIMALISMS 221
6. Conclusion and Future Directions of Research
In this paper, theory of mind was developed as an agent’s method of rational self-assembly by
gradual change. This has been abstracted from theory and experiment in the cognitive
sciences, especially spatial cognition and belief revision, though not limited to these areas.
Agents do so by “measuring” other agents according to multiple criteria, i.e. they measure the
distance between their own position and another agent’s position on the map of rationality.
Then they apply methods following blueprints or schemas of methods. We can conzeptualize
that map as a conceptual neighborhood graph. Based on this graph, several notions can be
given without much effort concerning distance, minimal rationality, minimal theory of mind,
and minimal understanding. So, theory of mind can be characterized as a multi-criteria
problem that is solved essentially by gradual change in terms of self-assembly. For this
reason, there neither is the one minimalism nor is it easy to propose how to combine several
minimalisms. There are very different possible directions of future research in this area, just
to name a few and show the potential of the approach:
(1) Losing/tightening the formal constraints to model specific “maps” of rationality
Notions like consistency, inconsistency, or circularity are very important with respect to
actual real agents. “Consistency”/“inconsistency” are hot topics for the development of theory
of mind, i.e. in terms of false belief tasks that inherently assume for example young children
to apply inconsistent theories about persons and the world. It is also possible, for example, to
disallow circularity to get chains and directions on the graph that model histories of epistemic
moves (in a diachronic perspective), or communities of similar agent models (in a synchronic
perspective).
By such constraints, one can explore what epistemic moves are secure or allowed with respect
to consistency, for example. And what does it mean for possible rational understanding to
change such constraints like consistency? The reconstruction of another agent's schema can
depend on consistency or inconsistency assumptions – for example, for the same
“arithmetical surface” (doing arithmetical operations), one can always have a consistent
projective arithmetic or an inconsistent arithmetic (e.g. Priest (1994), Priest (2000)). This is a
kind of theory choice: which theory do we choose that analyzes the other agent in the best
way? Then, differences in consistency assumptions may lead to different accepted norms in
gradual development, because different “epistemic moves” are allowed depending on allowed
grades of inconsistency.
It is obviously possible to map such issues on the approach by changing conceptual
parameters of method schemas or of the graph. Then, it is also an interesting project to
compare the resulting graphs with classical approaches of belief fixation and belief change
like Levi (1991). He postulates a structure based on Boolean algebra/Boolean lattice and
conceptualizes ultra-filters and filters in order to characterize “secure epistemic moves”.
From a mathematical point of view, such algebras/lattices are just special cases in that graph
(namely every chain is an algebra/lattice, if we want to introduce them with the necessary
commitments to order theory and at least local consistency).
(2) Developing the “method”-approach in theory of mind and rationality research
In this paper, we only had a first glimpse of “method-engineering” and what it could do for
the conceptualization of agents. Future research could work on building blocks of agents
consisting of method schemas, for example.
(3) Applying gradual change to gradual change itself, i.e. having a developmental
perspective
As we know from actual agents, theory of mind develops. With respect to the building blocks,
one could model developing theory of mind for example by letting building blocks of method