Strega wrote:

Empathy is informed sympathy

I think that’s a good description, if you mean informed emotional resonance.  Empathy has three components: cognitive perspective taking, emotional resonance, and empathic concern or compassion.

A psychopath can have empathy in the sense of cognitive perspective taking; but they can’t do emotional…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

If empathy is what it takes for us to do the right things, that’s great. However, the dichotomous situation of living standards always throws me for a loop.

In a recent Facebook post answering a person who likes to remind leftists like me that the Democrats were very keen on the KKK and it was a Republican who f…

[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:

If empathy is what it takes for us to do the right things, that’s great. However, the dichotomous situation of living standards always throws me for a loop.

In a recent Facebook post answering a person who likes to remind leftists like me that the Democrats were very keen on the KKK and it was a Republican who freed the slaves, I…[Read more]

13,100 children under the age of 5 die every day. 9 kids a minute. Many starve or just don’t get medicine they need.

We love our pets. More than half a million cats are snuffed out in shelters each year.

Mother nature is absolutely ruthless. How many creatures are eaten alive every day?

Should one have empathy for someone who stubs a toe? It…[Read more]

Strega wrote:

@unseen you made the exact point that I also thought. Empathy is the feeling when you can relate to an injury or event because you have been through similar events and you  feel knowledgable sympathy. You do not feel anyone else’s experience.

Indeed, if I stub my toe and keep quiet about it, who is going to say “I feel your pa…[Read more]

No expert and just my impression but empathy is chacterized by creating a relatable impression that is experienced/felt when one organism observes another. Does not have to be same species. Mirror neurons and other neural junk whose name(s) escapes me and neural pathways are activated when something observed causes alarm or joy/ecstasy. If one is…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Try explaining what water is to a fish.

I think the limiting factor there is probably the fish’s level of intellection.

You can certainly explain to a human of reasonable intelligence who’s awake what air is.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

In other words, Nielsen would agree with Wittgenstein’s skepticism about the internal comparison but lean even harder toward dismissing the worry as philosophically idle — what matters is shared public criteria for use, not metaphysical guarantees of inner sameness.

I think that is essentially the conclusion Wit…[Read more]

Empathy is informed sympathy

Someone has told me they are an Empath. What is an Empath? Is there a Sympath as well?

Try explaining what water is to a fish.