People often feel confident interpreting someone else’s motives, even when they’re working with tiny fragments of behavior. The mind fills in the gaps automatically — not because we’re intuitively insightful, but because we rely on a built‑in cognitive mechanism that tries to explain actions through assumed goals and beliefs. The trouble starts when we mistake this mental reconstruction for objective truth.
If you want a clearer look at how this mechanism works — and why it’s not the same as intuition — check out Attributing Intentions: A Cognitive Mechanism, Not an Intuition: https://www.cognitived.science/art-11. It breaks down how the brain models other people’s states and why those models feel so convincing. https://atlas.cognitived.science/