There is a great talk by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins available on the web from TED talks called Queerer Than We Can Suppose: The Strangeness of Science. He talks about how our understanding of the world is something we evolved. Our models of the world evolved because they were the most useful to us and helped our survival. Even though these models may not be entirely accurate in reality, they evolve because of their usefulness to us in the world we live in. The aspects of the world we normally live in, based on our size, our lifespan, our normal daily lives, greatly affect the understanding of the world that we develop.

For example, we see rocks as solid objects because that is what is useful for us in the world. We pick up and use rocks as solid objects so we understand them that way. In reality, rocks just have a denser collection of atoms than air, but there is no clear distinction between these two patches of atoms. If our bodies were on the scale of atoms, then we would have evolved an understanding that saw things as collections of atoms rather than solid objects and the facts of quantum physics would be standard knowledge for us. If our bodies were on the scale of universes then we would have evolved an understanding of relativity. One example that he gives is that water striders probably have a model of a 2-dimensional world (the flat surface of the water) and surface tension is a key component rather than gravity.

Dawkins also applies this theory to our personification of things. Since we live in a social world and interacting with others is important to our lives, we have evolved this theory of self and personality. We don’t attribute someone’s actions to the fact that they have extra dopamine in their brain at this moment or because some certain set of neurons just fired, we attribute their actions to their personality and decision making. This model makes it easier for us to interact with others. Since it works so well with other people, we often apply it to cars, dogs, etc, giving them names and personalities as well. It is quite interesting that something as ubiquitous as idea of selves and personality could exist just because they were the best ways of understanding the world around us.