The ability to achieve intimacy, involvement and empathy with others, reading their thoughts and feelings by "recruiting" our intuitive inquiry skills, does not necessarily mean that we're always reading the real thoughts and feelings of others. Often we find ourselves ascribing thoughts and feelings to others that are not actually their intention. In fact, we have no way to accurately read the thoughts and feelings of others, but only to evaluate and make inferences. We can bring good and reasonable guesses based on what they say, what we read between the lines, what we see from their faces and their eyes, and what can be learned from their behavior and their way of life. This is the most impressive talent of the human being. But reading the thoughts and feelings of others, well as the emotional state and self-worth of others, is not more than reading the image of our own thoughts, beliefs and feelings and projecting them upon the other. What matters is not the other person's position, but what we think about the position of the other. When we, for example, see someone suffer and feel anxious, when we look at a picture that describes horror, we often react to our own mental images.

In early battles over property the principles of law are rehearsed. The youngest children claim ownership of something based on the argument of their own desires: 'It's mine because I want it.' Later, around two years of age, they begin to argue with an acknowledgement of others' rights to claim the same property for themselves. Understanding others' ownership is a way of discovering that there are other individuals. The first arguments outlined by children are usually: 'I had it first'; 'They gave it to me.' This intuition that the first person to touch something wins indefinite rights to its usage does not disappear in adulthood. Heated discussions over a parking spot, a seat on a bus, or the ownership of an island by the first country to plant its flag there are private and institutional examples of these heuristics. Perhaps because of that, it is unsurprising that large social conflicts, like in the Middle East, are perpetuated by very similar arguments to those used in a dispute between two-year-olds: 'I got here first'; 'They gave it to me.'