Kara Connor

Reg, you’ve confused me with Enco…

Apologies to you both…..I was thinking that you Jake, would appreciate the word when you read it.  Not quite a mondegreen though. Mrs. Malaprop, you have a rival in Lisa Simpson, but don’t worry Lisa, iconoclasts are very welcome here 🙂

Right now, christian nationalism is the #1 immediate threat to our nation and democracy on this planet. Not Islamists, not trans athletes, not antisemitic  Harvard, not China, not Ukranian Nazis, not even climate change. Anyone fighting this shit, I am gonna root for them. When the threat is over, then back to the regularly scheduled program.…[Read more]

Here is one of the reasons that Jews were discriminated against at Harvard and many elite American institutions in the early 20th century.

Jewish enrollment at elite colleges in the U.S. began to rise significantly due to merit-based admissions (which emphasized academic achievement). By the 1925, Jewish students made up more than 25% of the…[Read more]

Permit me Jake the indulgence of extending my most effulgent approbation for your recent prolix perambulations through the luxuriant lexicon of our beloved English tongue. Your sesquipedalian predilections, far from being an impediment to intelligibility, represent a salubrious balm upon the oft-diminished art of articulate articulation.

Indeed,…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
He’s turning the Iranian sponsored malfeasance at Harvard into another anti-woke shit-show instead of dealing with Iran like he promised. Hey, we all know anti-woke nonsense is way more important than having a democracy, a free market economy, an educated public or rule of law.

He doesn’t have to be such a dick about it.  I’m no…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Again, this is the kind of stuff that encourages hatred of philosophy as empty egg-headedness.

I think it’s ordinary straightforward philosophy.  It would interest some people.

jakelafort wrote:
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 high in empathy watch a movie and start crying or repulsing the automatic response to some tear jerker shit. Zeus ex machina or some shit.

That would be emotional…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
If you want to numb somebody’s sense of empathy, as well as any love of philosophical thought, just have them read that essay, as well as the others in Nagel’s What Does It All Mean?

It may or may not be a godawful book, but I think it’s an interesting question to ask what it’s like for some totally different organism to…[Read more]

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]

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.

_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.

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]