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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Most Theistic of Them All?

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Most Theistic of Them All? COMMENTARIES Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Most Theistic of Them All? G ORDON G. G ALLUP , J R . ¤ and J ACK D. M ASER ¤¤ Before commenting on the question of theistic percepts in other species, it is important to provide some background information. In an attempt to generate an evolutionary account of theism, which then led incidentally to speculation about the possibility of theistic thinking in other species, we (Maser & Gallup 1990) used a model one of us developed earlier (Gallup 1982). The central feature of that model is that the ability to make inferences and attributions about mental states in others is a consequence of self-awareness. To be self-aware means that you can become the object of your own attention, and as such organisms that can recognize themselves in mirrors are taken to be self-aware. To be self-aware, in the sense of being aware of being aware, means that you are in the unique position of being able to use your experience to model ostensible states of experience in others. As members of the same species, we share highly similar receptors and underlying neurological mechanisms, and as a consequence there is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Cognition and Culture Brill

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Most Theistic of Them All?

Gallup, Gordon; Maser, Jack
Journal of Cognition and Culture , Volume 1 (2): 4 – Jan 1, 2001
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1567-7095
eISSN
1568-5373
DOI
10.1163/156853701316931416
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

COMMENTARIES Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Most Theistic of Them All? G ORDON G. G ALLUP , J R . ¤ and J ACK D. M ASER ¤¤ Before commenting on the question of theistic percepts in other species, it is important to provide some background information. In an attempt to generate an evolutionary account of theism, which then led incidentally to speculation about the possibility of theistic thinking in other species, we (Maser & Gallup 1990) used a model one of us developed earlier (Gallup 1982). The central feature of that model is that the ability to make inferences and attributions about mental states in others is a consequence of self-awareness. To be self-aware means that you can become the object of your own attention, and as such organisms that can recognize themselves in mirrors are taken to be self-aware. To be self-aware, in the sense of being aware of being aware, means that you are in the unique position of being able to use your experience to model ostensible states of experience in others. As members of the same species, we share highly similar receptors and underlying neurological mechanisms, and as a consequence there is

Journal

Journal of Cognition and Culture – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2001

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