Snapshot · Modern Wisdom
Theory of mind — the ability to understand that others have their own thoughts and perspectives — emerges in children around age four, the same time lying begins, and is the cognitive foundation for empathy and social perception.
Where this was said
At 1:41:00 · chapter starts 1:38:57
George Mack asks each guest who in their life they'd send into a room of ten people to find the one secretly suffering. Tim Urban nominates therapist and author Esther Perel, whom he knows personally and finds almost supernaturally perceptive. Tim Ferriss nominates serial entrepreneur Kevin Rose for his off-the-charts EQ. The experiment generalises: the same skill applies to spotting psychopaths, con artists, and affairs. George Mack links it to theory of mind — the cognitive ability that comes online around age four — and the developmental stages through which children move from solipsism to recognising other consciousnesses. Tim Urban explains the 'oceanic feeling' that young children experience (the sense that the world is there for them and loves them unconditionally) and argues that fame-seeking in teenagers is often an attempt to recover that feeling. Tim Ferriss argues EQ is trainable but that raw materials differ enormously — like vertical jump — and that it extends beyond human-to-human perception to reading animals.
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