Nothing at all.

In academic circles the term "history of ideas" refers to tracing the succesion of philosophical claims in written works. By talking only about literature, scholars need not go much further back than Plato.

But certainly ideas were in use much farther back than this. Since we've all read , we all know it's not right to think we can know to any scientific certainty what other animals think. But science is only our most recent knowledge acquisition instrument. Knowledge itself goes much further back. And just because your microscope can't see my asteroid, this doesn't prove it doesn't exist.

All knowledge claims are based on unstated premises, and all claimants of knowledge are prejudiced in favor of their own unstated premises. "Scientistic" white coats are often the most narrow-minded of all. Yet all of us can access these premises through "the evidence of things not seen" methods we've always used.

If we give our imaginations an extra degree of freedom here, I think it's quite plausible to believe that in earlier times social thought was faith-based and action gang-related. Given the right premises, after all, it's quite sensible to think, "If there's rain, there must be a rain god". Or to beat up somebody if you don't like their face.

In , First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar is stranded at an outpost near a Lakota village. After some early encounters, the tribe's medicine man Kicking Bird and warrior Wind In His Hair, visit him and try to make friends. But his ways are strange to them. Wind In His Hair says, "He has lost his mind" and wants to turn back. The wiser Kicking Bird can handle more complex models of "other minds" and decides that some learning might bring these two worlds together. Apparently the ability to think, and to act, varies greatly even within a single village, a single family — and sometimes episodically even within a single person.

The phrase "lost his mind" is no longer used as a diagnostic category, even in vernacular contexts. Yet it is easy to see why it makes sense to unsophisticated observers. And recently it has started to make sense to the rest of us. , in his 1976 book , claims that as recently as three thousand years ago humans had a distinctly lower form of consciousness than we have today because their minds lacked a "meta-consciousness" oor "meta-awareness", i.e., awareness of awareness, thoughts about thinking, desires about desires, beliefs about beliefs. I don't know where we'll be three thousand years from now, but I hope those people will feel much better off than we have.

Thomas Aquinas, who believed that all God's creatures had something to say to one another, said, "There's always something for a greater angel to tell a lesser angel." But in biological life forms it's not always clear who's which. All species tend to avoid creatures who seem to think differently from they, and can't easily tell where on the great chain of being the "other" belongs. All human social groups do this too. It's routine for white coats, for example, to accuse simpler folks of being ignorant and superstitious, and they in turn will accuse the eggheads of being crazy as batshit. They're both right and both wrong.

Let's think about cats. After Sneakers had surgery she refused to leave my bathtub and had to be fed there or starve. She had literally forgotten who she was. Slowly she progressed to being able to spend her days between her litter box and the well of my laser printer. Only after a few more weeks did she become her "old self" again and feel free to roam the entire apartment.

I'm horrified when Scratchie goes after a mouse. He becomes a cruel murderer, a fiend I can no longer empathize with. My anger sometimes drives me to spank and threaten him in the hope that he'll get the message. And sometimes he does: he no longer sharpens his claws on the books within his reach, for example. Cats are social animals, after all, and if he can learn the rule the alpha-male is asking him to obey, he seems quite proud of himself. He wants to be a "good cat". But hunting is a higher priority and more impulsive activity than claw-sharpening, and Schweitzer's "reverence for life" is just too difficult a principle for him to get his mind around. So after each scolding he is hurt. He feels he is too stupid to learn, has failed in his basic social obligations, and isn't good enough to be part of my family. This is not what I want.

If "The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language", Scratchie and me are two friends separated by a common worldview. Actually, our worldviews only look similar, and it's a testament to biological evolution that we can enjoy any kind of symbiotic relationship at all.

I believe that this hidden bifurcation is built into symbiotic relationships and covered over by vigorous fast-acting adaptations. If you have a brain the size of a peanut, I can easily imagine that when Scratchie chases a mouse he's thinking, "Oh, something to play with! And after I play with it will turn into delicious food for me to eat. What a wonderful life I have!"

His worldview is utterly true and right for him. There is nothing "wrong" with him. It's just that larger brains can handle more complex models of reality, while tiny brains stick to the simple ones. But it's no surprise to them when their ideas and methods fail.

And just as we moderns know that scientifically models that have been "proved" can still be "disproved" by the first black swan, humans that rely on more primitive ideations are perfectly used to the fact and their magic and miracles frequently fail them. You don't "believe in them", you just hope they'll work this time.

In Little Big Man, the Indian Elder Old Lodge Skins, takes Jack Crabb the captured white boy he has adopted, outside the camp because he knows it's time to die.

"Come out and fight!" he says to the sky. "It is a good day to die! Thank you for making me a Human Being! Thank you for helping me to become a warrior. Thank you for my victories, and for my defeats. Thank you for my vision, and the blindness in which I saw further. You make all things and direct them in their ways, oh Grandfather. And now, you have to silence the Human beings! We'll soon walk a road that leads nowhere. I am going to die now, unless death wants to fight. And I ask you for the last time: to grant me my old power to make things happen."

He lies down on the ground. After a few seconds, he props himself up and adds one more thought: "Take care of my son here. See that he doesn't go crazy."

He closes his eyes. After a few minutes, it starts to rain and he wakes up.

"Am I still in this world?" he asks Jack.

"Yes, Grandfather."

"I was afraid of that. Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't."

Science and engineering are better than magic and miracles, but only if you've got the right brain matter and cultural muscle. And, unfortunately, NO BRAIN SMALLER THAN THE UNIVERSE CAN MODEL EVERYTHING.

The real infrequently asked question then becomes: In which ways is our modern "scientific" approach to knowledge itself based on premises which will eventually be shown to disqualify us from ever being visited by s?

In other words, when we kick back to watch the beloved yuletide classic — realizing once again that, as Leibniz told us, "This is the best of all possible worlds" — be assured that the aliens are thinking:

"What a race of cruel murderous fiends!" "Science, per se, doesn't deal with the complex quality called 'humanness' any more than it does with such equally complex concepts as love, faith or trust. Without experiments there is no science, no way to prove or disprove any idea. [We] maintain that concepts such as humanness are beyond the purview of science because no idea about them can be tested experimentally."

— Dr. Leon Rosenberg, chairman of the department of human genetics at Yale University School of Medicine, quoted in the November 1981 issue of Life magazine. Nor was there anything "wrong" with dinosaurs. Unless, that is, you believe Parade of Ancient Animals by Harold O. Whitnall, head of the department of geology at Colgate University. Some random quotes: "Brontosaurus was dull and stupid. It knew just about enough to know when it was dinner time. From its size it would seem that all times were meal times." "Since the animals on which he fed were just as stupid as he was, he didn't have to chase them far. Tyrannosaurus was the cruelest beast of his time." "The lazy stupid dinosaurs never had any children and when they died their race died with them and they became extinct."

Hundreds of millions of years of dominating the planet and not one offspring. Really, Dr. Whitnall? Even geologists are supposed to have at least heard of natural selection. Or the life cycle!