Regarding malicious willful ignorance and the embrace of lies.

General Discussion
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I always ask the question, what does a term like “theory of mind” mean in terms of actual behavior.

I look at the concept of “mind” for example, as the composite of all the various thinking behaviors that we are aware of in ourselves. And a big part of thinking behaviors involve verbal behaviors. e.g. I am using covert verbal behavior, right now, to help me compose this post.

Now, the term “theory of mind” refers to our behaviors of recognizing that “I” and “you” and others as separate individuals who have their own thoughts, feelings, etc.

I think that our complex verbal behaviors, to some extent are scaffolding for the development of the behaviors involved in theory of mind.

Our complex verbal behaviors develop by virtue of our evolution as social animals, cared for throughout an early developmental period of being cared for and responded to by caregivers. Our verbal behaviors develop functionally, i.e., our verbal behaviors develop by virtue of the responses we get from listeners.

Anyway, the point, I want to get to, is that our verbal behavior including that which is thoughts, is a product of reinforcement by listeners, but it can sometimes ALSO be a product of (or is affected by) occurring emotions. This is where, I think, the psychological defenses, that Freud came up with, impact on the defense mechanism behaviors.

And the reason it is useful to examine all of these things in terms of behaviors, is that we can analyze behaviors in terms of the rules of behavior that we know. I think that this is the most coherent avenue for addressing and understanding the development of what we tend to refer to as psychological processes.

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I dont know what you are alluding to. What you posted is basic evolution of homo sapiens. What I suggested was “theory of mind” that explains the evolution of human consciousness. Go back and read my post.
I did and theory of mind has nothing to do with evolution of consciousness (awareness. These are two separate things.

Theory of mind

Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge, etc. — to oneself and to others. Theory of mind is necessary to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own.[1] Theory of mind is crucial for everyday human social interactions and is used when analyzing, judging, and inferring others' behaviors.[2] Deficits can occur in people with autism spectrum disorders, genetic-based eating disorders, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,[3] cocaine addiction,[4] and brain damage suffered from alcohol's neurotoxicity;[5] deficits associated with opiate addiction reverse after prolonged abstinence.[6] Theory of mind is distinct from philosophy of mind.
Consciousness
Consciousness at its simplest is "sentience or awareness of internal or external existence".[1] Despite centuries of analyses, definitions, explanations and debates by philosophers and scientists, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial,[2] being "at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives".[3] Perhaps the only widely agreed notion about the topic is the intuition that it exists.[4] Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied and explained as consciousness. Sometimes it is synonymous with 'the mind', other times just an aspect of mind. In the past it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition.[5] Today, with modern research into the brain it often includes any kind of experience, cognition, feeling or perception. It may be 'awareness', or 'awareness of awareness', or self-awareness
Theory of mind is about what awareness produces not what produces awareness.
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I have been considering the importance of the concept of denial lately, and considering the tying together of our, probably, in-born tendency to deny aspects of our reality. The authors in the book, that straw cited, had, I think connected “denial” with our other abilities of believing or attending to, alternate versions of our own “truth”.

 

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Even then you still end up with questions about selfhood and what is real.

are we our experiences, drives, family upbringing, etc? Are we the things we have learned in this life? If we overcome these then were they ever really us or is what we are something else. I keep hearing it tossed around that we are awareness.

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You are an organism with certain abilities. One of the abilities is awareness.

 

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I guess so but I can’t help but think about selfhood and what is our true self. That it is outside of space and time and that something out of space and time is our true identity. That it is more real then the mental constructs we have which is stuff we learned from life because of family we were born into, the circumstances we were in, situations we had and our natural proclivities. Not sure how true that is especially something being outside of space and time.

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the mental constructs we have which is stuff we learned from life because of family we were born into, the circumstances we were in, situations we had and our natural proclivities
I just wanted to look at that in isolation. It's what we are. All that other stuff is pure imagination.