Yeah, in general, I’m sure part of it is that humans can’t easily conceptualize true death in the first place (but that’s even further grounds for not taking them seriously when they say they want to die). Just like part of it is our instinctive animism/anthropomorphism. I certainly don’t want to minimize the role of “cognitive illusions” in the whole thing.
But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these beliefs depict the universe as fairly utopian—the afterlife often resolves misunderstandings, rebalances moral scales, makes room for further growth… and earthly suffering is generally given higher purpose. Remember—a true human utopia doesn’t give its members all they think they desire, or eliminate the sort of suffering which serves a deeper human value, fiction is replete with failed utopias along those lines. Despite all the terrible things, we could be in a utopia right now if only we have sufficiently optimistic beliefs about what happens outside the narrow window of our worldly experiences. Is it a coincidence that religions often have precisely these optimistic beliefs?
Anyway, I doubt you need to get into “what does the mouse expect” to explain that particular result: Very young children also lack the theory of mind to understand that not everyone has the same information as they do. If the mouse had simply left the room and the alligator ate the mouse’s friend squirrel, they might say the mouse was sad and angry (not realizing that the mouse was gone from the room and wouldn’t know about what the alligator did).
Yeah, in general, I’m sure part of it is that humans can’t easily conceptualize true death in the first place (but that’s even further grounds for not taking them seriously when they say they want to die). Just like part of it is our instinctive animism/anthropomorphism. I certainly don’t want to minimize the role of “cognitive illusions” in the whole thing.
But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these beliefs depict the universe as fairly utopian—the afterlife often resolves misunderstandings, rebalances moral scales, makes room for further growth… and earthly suffering is generally given higher purpose. Remember—a true human utopia doesn’t give its members all they think they desire, or eliminate the sort of suffering which serves a deeper human value, fiction is replete with failed utopias along those lines. Despite all the terrible things, we could be in a utopia right now if only we have sufficiently optimistic beliefs about what happens outside the narrow window of our worldly experiences. Is it a coincidence that religions often have precisely these optimistic beliefs?
Anyway, I doubt you need to get into “what does the mouse expect” to explain that particular result: Very young children also lack the theory of mind to understand that not everyone has the same information as they do. If the mouse had simply left the room and the alligator ate the mouse’s friend squirrel, they might say the mouse was sad and angry (not realizing that the mouse was gone from the room and wouldn’t know about what the alligator did).
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