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Re:Primatologist Frans de Waal takes exception with human ex... by simonh on Friday April 05, 2019 @10:16PM (#19588748)
I’m aware of the idea of parallel evolution. You’re quite right, it’s entirely plausible and not something we can dismiss out of hand.

With species like squirrels that are more remotely related to us, there is more scope for an argument of parallel evolution, sure. Maybe their similar behaviour developed independently and has a different cause especially when other mammals do not exhibit this behaviour.

With our much closer relatives such as apes though that exhibit so many more behaviours that are very close to ours it’s much less plausible. If all of them exhibit a common pattern of social behaviour with ourselves, arguing all of them could have independently developed this behaviour separately from us and each other, to appear indistinguishable, that seems highly implausible.

Even with squirrels though, as mammals they exhibit many behaviours common to all mammals. Behaviours we exhibit as well. So if all mammals have these behaviours and we do too, if our behaviour has a different cause, at some point our ancestors must have switched from exhibiting the behaviour due to the common mamalian cause to exhibiting it due to this new cause unique to us. I don’t find that account very plausible either.

Did our ancestors stop exhibiting this behaviour first, then develop new neurological mechanisms that happened to replace the lost behaviours? When did that happen, before or after we diverged from other apes? Maybe they have these behaviour for the same reason as us but other mammals don’t? Did we develop a parallel mechanism and the behaviour transitioned to the new causal mechanism? I’d expect to see some residual evidence in our neurology or behavioural patterns of that having happened.

Re:Primatologist Frans de Waal takes exception with human ex... by mannykannot on Saturday April 06, 2019 @10:11AM (#19590802)
Parallel or convergent evolution is coincidental to the point I was making, which is that you cannot assume a theory of mind from observations that might be consistent with it; you also have to give due consideration to the other possibilities, such as it being an instinctive behavior evolved for a particular situation.

>Even with squirrels though, as mammals they exhibit many behaviours common to all mammals. Behaviours we exhibit as well. So if all mammals have these behaviours and we do too...

Here you are combining speculation with an argument from the general to the specific. There are some behaviors common to all mammals, but are there any theory-of-mind-like behaviors in that category? No, so the rest of that paragraph and the one following are built on a false premise.

I am no expert, but FWIW, I happen to think that apes, or at least chimpanzees and orangutans, do have a nascent theory of mind, and that it was more developed in the various hominins that are now extinct.