blackcat

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.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Yes, Wittgenstein argued that there’s no way to verify if two people feel the same thing internally. His “private language argument” basically says that sensations are private, but the language we use about them is public and is only meaningful because it connects to public criteria like behavior and expre…

[Read more]

In Wittgenstein’s famous discussion of pain and private language he points out that there is no way to know what someone else senses. If you and I coincidentally stub our toes at the same time and react simultaneously in a similar fashion, is this sufficient to declare that we both feel the same thing? No, and there’s no way to verify the not…[Read more]

This new London Tube map is excellent!  Article.

But if I see you stub your toe, and I am at all sympathetic with you, then I will feel your pain by empathy. We’ve evolved that as part of the human suite of cooperative abilities.

What is it like to be a Bat?

@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.

You hear people all the time saying their empathy forces them to feel everything (usually bad things) fr…[Read more]

I read this article this morning. In my head, I can’t trace the route from cell consciousness as described, to the almost non-sequitur of changing reality.

Basically they’re proposing that our cells have a consciousness and actually make decisions – and then somehow that affects reality and we’re reshaping our future.

Opinions would be super…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Not by empathy. You may empathize but you experience no actual pain.

OK, I will experience distress and emotional pain, as if I had really stubbed my toe.

Simon Paynton wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:
Come on now. The billionaires need that money. You think those inflatable lips, tits and tender boats for their mega-yachts are cheap?

You’re right, they are that bad. There’s a narrative in the UK that Trump’s tariff earnings are going to promote tax breaks for his rich friends.

Trump is a sociopath. He ha…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
But if I see you stub your toe, and I am at all sympathetic with you, then I will feel your pain by empathy.

Not by empathy. You may empathize but you experience no actual pain. Rather memories of pain are brought forth. So, it’s by analogy, not empathy. If I see someone stub their big toe hard, it brings forth a memory of a…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
Come on now. The billionaires need that money. You think those inflatable lips, tits and tender boats for their mega-yachts are cheap?

You’re right, they are that bad.  There’s a narrative in the UK that Trump’s tariff earnings are going to promote tax breaks for his rich friends.

Simon Paynton wrote:

TheEncogitationer wrote:
When Government defunds Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia, it is not so much exercising speech of it’s own. Rather the Government is forbidding forced speech, which results when taxpayers are forced to support these institutions promoting Antisemitism, as well promoting as the Critical R…

[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
When Government defunds Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia, it is not so much exercising speech of it’s own. Rather the Government is forbidding forced speech, which results when taxpayers are forced to support these institutions promoting Antisemitism, as well promoting as the Critical Race T…

[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
We use the same word, pain, but my sensation is mine alone. You can’t feel it. And of course it’s true vice versa. We simply make an assumption of parity based on similar behavior, but when it comes to my perceptions and yours, each of us is on a desert island with no hope of rescue.

But if I see you stub your toe, and I am at all…[Read more]

Instead of the myopic view, how about if we examine the accomplishments of Harvard Medical School alone, and gauge that against the alleviation of guilty conscience by the entitled Harvard students and staff with their flawed but inconsequential support of Palestinians.

https://hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/history-hms/timeline-discovery

Imagine the…[Read more]

The article on consciousness gets into an area I’ve always found fascinating.

Consciousness is an illusion in the sense that our perception of the world is given to us by our brain. Is an orange orange in color out there in the world? No, because outside of a nervous system, what we call orange isn’t a color at all, it’s a wave length. In that…[Read more]

Reg,

What makes MAGA anti-Christian?

Atheists lecturing believers about their own doctrines strikes me as concern-trolling. If they’re making a mistake, let them do so.

Reg,

Harvard, do you hear yourself?

The Government defunding of Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia is right, but the argument used here is flawed.

When Government defunds Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia, it is not so much exercising speech of it’s own. Rather the Government is forbidding forced speech, which results when…[Read more]

Thanks Reg!!