If I assume that others have minds like mine I surely would also assume they “project” the same properties, so calling them “mental projection” is not likely to make this error go away. Conversely if I establish that a certain property is a real, non-projected property of an object, that doesn’t entitle me to assume that it will be perceived by an alien with a different evolutionary history. After all, humans only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects. So I think that the “mind projection error” and the “all minds are alike” error are quite different.
Your error is falsely conclude that he fallacy is essential to human thinking, that the properties projected are always and the same across the board, and that they cannot differ. And what the heck does “human only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects” even mean? We certainly don’t know all there is about a thing, but what properties are you even talking about and how?
And what the heck does “human only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects
One thing that comes to mind to me is color. We see red green and blue. Aliens might see yellow and ultraviolet instead. We might decide to camouflage ourselves so that they don’t see us, and fail completely because we’re using the wrong colors to blend in.
Technically, there’s no point where this stops and mind projection begins. How sexy you’d find a woman is much more complex than how red you’d find her dress, and it’s similarly less likely for an alien to notice, but it’s just a matter of degree.
If I assume that others have minds like mine I surely would also assume they “project” the same properties, so calling them “mental projection” is not likely to make this error go away. Conversely if I establish that a certain property is a real, non-projected property of an object, that doesn’t entitle me to assume that it will be perceived by an alien with a different evolutionary history. After all, humans only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects. So I think that the “mind projection error” and the “all minds are alike” error are quite different.
Your error is falsely conclude that he fallacy is essential to human thinking, that the properties projected are always and the same across the board, and that they cannot differ. And what the heck does “human only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects” even mean? We certainly don’t know all there is about a thing, but what properties are you even talking about and how?
One thing that comes to mind to me is color. We see red green and blue. Aliens might see yellow and ultraviolet instead. We might decide to camouflage ourselves so that they don’t see us, and fail completely because we’re using the wrong colors to blend in.
Technically, there’s no point where this stops and mind projection begins. How sexy you’d find a woman is much more complex than how red you’d find her dress, and it’s similarly less likely for an alien to notice, but it’s just a matter of degree.