[cantthinkofone]

>Even though eye beams do not exist in reality, and even though most people do not intellectually believe in them, they may exist as a part of the rich, implicit social model that we naturally apply to seeing agents.

It makes sense that people would attempt to reconstruct a model or theory of mind from scant cues based on other's gazes. In many contexts, such as encountering strangers, you don't have anything else to work with, and so the importance is on leveraging what you can.

It's also something that even if eye beams or extramissons have no empirical reality, the concept of them can still be utilized in representations of other's minds. It reminds me of Zizek's interest in the "reality of the virtual" that is, even things that aren't empirically real but are merely conceived can have real world impacts.

[thanatropism]

Zizek's a Lacanian. Lacan has a very rich theory of the Gaze.

Unscientific, but still very rich.