So, evolutionary speaking, presumably this overactive assigning of agency has adaptive value. Possibly. It's not so clear. If it involves making sacrifices that are ultimately irrational, if it involves being manipulated by others, maybe not. But it may just be that the overall benefit of being able to attribute minds outweighs the cost in cases where others can exploit us. In the case of animals, of course, animals actually do have minds so it's not such a crazy thing. Indeed, a lot of ... In some hunter-gatherer peoples, they do attribute enormous amounts