Page |27 What is the relevance of this to the feel socially isolated (i.e., lonely) story of the social nature of humankind? Our compared to when they do not feel research findings have led me to believe that —_ lonely, they are more likely not only to we all have made Eddington’s error in the way perceive nonhuman objects as human- we have thought about, studied, and tried to like but to believe in the existence of deal with an invisible force that motivates us God (3/, 36). To understand the full to seek and maintain our connection with capacity of and forces operating on others — including the loneliness one feels humans, we need to appreciate not only when we feel important social connections are the memory and computational power of threatened or absent. Historically, the the brain but its capacity for scientific perspective on loneliness was not representing, understanding, and only that it was a painful and miserable state, | connecting with other individuals and but that it was an aversive state with no with the emergent structures, fictional redeeming features. All one needs to dois to and real, that the brain can represent. reflect on the last time one felt terribly lonely, That is, we need to recognize that we and one can appreciate the seemingly self- have evolved a powerful, meaning- evident truth of this characterization. Butas making social brain and a need for social Sir Arthur Eddington’s story shows us, the connection. obvious and intuitive can sometimes be very R . . . . . eferences misleading. It is now widely recognized that many structures and processes of the mind 1, Dawkins R. The Selfish Gene. operate outside of awareness, with only the 1976. end products sometimes reaching awareness. 9 Williams GC. Natural Selection, Humans have evolved to seek the Costs of Reproduction, and a connections with and validation from Refinement of Lack's Principle. other minds, and these social The American Naturalist connections represent an important set of 1