Everyday life is full of situations that require us to take others’ perspectives – for example, when showing a book to a child, we intuitively know how to hold it so that they can see it well, even if it is harder to see for ourselves. Or when performing before an audience, we often can’t help but picture how we will look to the other people.

New research published in Current Biology has provided the first direct evidence that we can do this because we spontaneously form mental images of how the world looks to the other person, so that we can virtually see through their eyes and make judgements as if it was what we were seeing. (1)

Wise men always did that.

Seeing the cosmos through the eyes of the cosmos.

And what they saw left them in awe.

Because there was nothing to see.

But the cosmos itself…

On that frozen night. On that calm lake.

Through the stormy winds. In the raging ocean.

There the universe cries out in silence…

There is nothing to see.

I am seeing you…