Review of an article: ToM and Religion (not so great, but with a positive conclusion)

Boyd, Jeffrey H., “Have We Found the Holy Grail? Theory of Mind as a Unifying Construct”, Journal of Religion and Health 47:3 (2008) 366-385

The answer of this article is 'yes', and it intends to show how ToM (the ability to know what another person intends to do) is a unifying theory, i.e. can explain phenomena which look unconnected in first sight.

I will ignore the low register of the English in this article, and the few typos which I found, and relate to the content only.

The first thing that disturbed me was the religious point of view that was implicit in the article. Implicit – not because it was not noticed, it was very much noticed, but because it was taken for granted. Here are two examples:

p. 377: “We are also awestruck with the magnificence of the world, the cornucopia of life, and we year to give thanks for being alive.”; where on earth did this come from? I thought we are finding ourselves in a rat-race and whenever we have a minute to breath we ponder on the question 'who needs all this?'

Same page: “This article proposes that spirituality arose because ToM brings with it existential problems that can only be solved spiritually. Another way to say it would be that the Spirit made man/woman in his/her/its own image (genesis 1:27).

Boyd connects the mirror neurons theory to ToM theory in the following steps:

1. I can copy what you do because the same mirror neurons fire in my brain

2. I can simulate your behaviour, even without your doing it, because I know how I would do it.

3. I know what you are about to do, because if I were doing what you do, then the next thing I would do would be X.

4. I can infer your intention, because if I were doing what you are doing, then my goal would be X.

5. the fourth step already infers ToM.

Step 2 seems a bit 'in the air'; there seems to be a step missing here - if I am mirroring, how can I 'mirror' something that you are not doing?
* Disclosure: I do believe that I know what the 'step' is, it is the 'decoupling' aspect of human brain, but this belongs to a future post.

Another brain analysis which is not convincing in this article (p. 372): “After all, how can you impute goals and purpose to someone else, unless you are able to put that into words (Miller 2006)?” - is he quoting Miller? (developmental relationship between language and theory of mind – this is the name of Miller's article, but Tomasello has shown that words are not at all necessary).

Boyd analyzes a few cases of ToM being used in religion.

His source about Judaism seems to be one Mr. Drubach, a neuro-scientist Jew who wrote in 2008 about ToM and religion in this same journal; Mr. Drubach does not seem to differentiate between his own knowledge customs and 'Judaism' in general. The sources about other religions are: personal knowledge as a Christian (about Christianity), which shouts un-professionalism, by understanding biblical stories (both OT and NT) in light of later church theology, and for Buddhism – probably Joseph Campbel (translated and interpreted secondary writings about Buddhism).

Here quote of a the analysis of Judaism “a prominent theme in Jewish mystical literature is that of God's empathy of human's emotiona status, be it joy or suffering.” - (p. 373). I cannot allow myself to be speechless here, so I will spell it out: God's empathy is perhaps found in Judaism, but it is hardly the characteristic of it; it is probably more a relatively late Christian notion which is retroactively applied to almost any religion.

And another example: it is probably true that the fact that Jacob thought (mistakenly) that Esau was planning to attack him (in the story in Genesis) is a result of Jacob having ToM (not the mistake, just the fact that Jacob thought that Esau had intentions), but this is hardly the key explanation of the event of the meeting of the two rival brothers. (also page 373).

Another 'pearl' from Boyd's article: "God's mind is capable of accomplishing something good through evil of human minds, became pivotal in Jewish, Christian and Islamic understanding of how God brings good out of evil” (p. 374). I never realized that this was so pivotal.

And the last - “Jesus was a master of using ToM, as evident in his parables”. Trust me, there was no worthwhile proof in any of the parables analyzed.

There are many more such semi-professional statements, which I will spare you.

So – why is ToM the holy grail? I really cannot answer this, because it is not. ToM is too much of a general human quality to be able to account for what Boyd thinks is Judaism Christianity or Islam, or religion in general if such can be defined or found.

Perhaps mr. Boyd has done other very good things, and has written other good books or articles, this one does not meet the requirements of a scholarly article, and makes me doubt the seriousness of the journal.

I will give it to mr. Boyd: I share with him the conviction that ToM is extremely important as a stage in the development of culture, and theistic religions as part of culture. This has to do with a (for the time being fragmented) continuum which takes us from brain to narrative, starting with face-recognition, then ToM, to gossip as a basic human activity (see Dunbar), to narrative condition (or mythic cognition, as Merlin Donald calls it).
This continuum is still fragmented because no research has been done to connect the points on it; I am not even sure that such research can be done, and perhaps 'fragmented' is not such a bad state to be in. But what this continuum assumes - and I think it is my innovation so please quote - is that narrative always entails personification, narrative is about persons (be it a human, animal, a G/god or a personified chair), it always entails an agent to which or to whom a plot is happening. This is the only way to wake emotions in humans, and emotions are the way to provoke meaning.

So, to finish up - ToM is important; the article reviewed misses the opportunity to suggest a serious discussion about this fact.