THINKING WHAT DOESN'T EXIST: THE GENESIS OF FICTION IN THE LIGHT OF THEORY OF MIND

Human thought shows, even in young age, a spontaneous, insatiable, tendency to deal with fiction. It is necessary to explain this feature of human mind, something unique, even paradoxical, in evolutionary terms. The "social intelligence hypothesis" gives us a research line and answer: it was the necessity of interpreting the inner world of our fellow men, in the adaptive context of a close cooperation life, the key of the advanced "Theory of Mind" (TOM) development and, consequently, a thought gifted with singular cognitive and meta-representational competences.