We, humans, evolved to become very socially intelligent. We are good at understanding what other people are thinking and feeling. There are special areas of the brain that do this. Two of them are pretty much just above the ears and about an inch in, on each side of the brain. They are called the "temporoparietal junction", or TPJ, because it is at the border between a part of the brain called the temporal lobe and another called the parietal lobe. These two TPJs work together with other areas of the brain and construct a notion of what might be going on in someone's mind. If all the social cues are right, we do more than we see and hear a person, and we also get an idea of the thoughts, feelings, and awareness of that person. We have an impression of consciousness in other person, courtesy of the special social machinery in the human brain.

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