The mind projection fallacy is an

informal fallacy Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the ''form'' of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their ''content'' and ''context''. Fall ...

first described by physicist and Bayesian philosopher E. T. Jaynes. In a first, "positive" form, it occurs when someone thinks that the way they see the world reflects the way the world really is, going as far as assuming the real existence of imagined objects. That is, someone's subjective judgments are "projected" to be inherent properties of an object, rather than being related to personal perception. One consequence is that others may be assumed to share the same perception, or that they are irrational or misinformed if they do not. In a second "negative" form of the fallacy, as described by Jaynes, occurs when someone assumes that their own lack of knowledge about a phenomenon (a fact about their state of mind) means that the phenomenon is not or cannot be understood (a fact about reality). (See also Map and territory.) Jaynes used this concept to argue against

Copenhagen interpretation The Copenhagen interpretation is a collection of views about the meaning of quantum mechanics, principally attributed to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It is one of the oldest of numerous proposed interpretations of quantum mechanics, as feat ...

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

. He described the fallacy as follows: In the 18th century,

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" '' Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment ph ...

suggested that the notion of causation comes from the mind, rather than from observation. He noted that while, for example, we can observe the throwing of a brick and the subsequent breaking of a window, the notion that the brick "causes" the window to break is not empirical, since only conjunction of events in time, and not "causation," can be observed.

References

1989 introductions Informal fallacies {{psychology-stub