In Regards to Theory of Mind: Always Be Kind.

We cannot help but anthropomorphize whatever we attempt to understand. It's not shameful, not anything but a shortcoming that is purely human, simply as far as our capacity goes. How could we possibly not anthropomorphize the subjects our curiosity? Especially if our only mode of understanding comes with our own individual experience of life and the ways in which we are swayed by the forces that move us. The concept of Theory of Mind is similar to the concept of archetypes of the collective unconscious, because they both assume a generalizability that allows us to have common understandings, but these understandings are subjective to the individual, and that is important to remember. My archetypal construct of love and your archetypal construct of love are different, but they overlap in ways that allow us to communicate, understand one another to a certain degree, and relate and share our experiences.

Critics of anthropomorphic tendencies blame us for humanizing the behaviors of animals, assuming they have more than just an animalistic consciousness that directs them towards food and safety -- but when you sit down with an animal, get all sentimental, look into its round, glassy eyes, and then your pup licks your face, puts its paw on your arm, you think to yourself, "man, this guy's got something going on inside." And you're led to questions of dreams, questions of animals feeling love, experiencing loss. And if these critics of anthropomorphism who remind us to not think with our hearts -- to remember what grandfather Darwin said, you can just respond back and say, well, "like Darwin said, didn't we all come from one organism billions of years ago anyways? Aren't we just different branches on the same tree? And if so, our consciousness must stem from that same trunk of being and awareness..." It goes on of course.

So it is basic and simple: the term anthropomorphism is a big, jumbled, condescending word that tries to give us the illusion that we are able to overcome our inherent, human tendencies and understand creatures with different perspectives. The truth is though, our theory of mind states that even though we know each human has their own self-determination and individual reality, we cannot grasp it with our hands. The only tangible understanding is the understanding we make ourselves. To anthropomorphize is to give animals theory of mind, and how unkind and silly we would be to not do so.

What I always go back to, one of the most fundamental and gut feelings of us humans: we will strive to understand the world around us, strive to make sense of it through categorization, systematization, through stereotypes, through simplification. We cannot help it -- we are active participants on this planet, and our contributions are our own unique visions that overlap and sometimes stray, but are always from the same tree, tying us together, whether we want it to or not.