Re: [TCS] What is empathy

On 13 Dec 2012, at 10:17, Jean Dutertre <jean_dutertre-1tsiiZ//[email protected]> wrote:

> Le 13/12/2012 08:59, Elliot Temple a écrit :
>> 
>> 
>> On Aug 23, 2012, at 8:58 AM, Rami Rustom <[email protected] <mailto:rombomb%40gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Rami Rustom <[email protected] <mailto:rombomb%40gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> On Aug 20, 2012 3:07 AM, "a b" <[email protected] <mailto:asbbih%40gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 8:37 PM, Rami Rustom <[email protected] <mailto:rombomb%40gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In these situations, the child might be very quiet about what the
>>>>>> problem is. So an approach that works is to guess why he might be sad
>>>>>> and form it into a question: "Are you sad about your mom not being
>>>>>> here?" If the guess was wrong, he'll tell you "no". If it was right,
>>>>>> he'll tell you "yes". And he may open up a lot more and tell you more
>>>>>> details. If he does, then use those details to form more accurate
>>>>>> guesses. Even if he doesn't say any more details, you can guess again:
>>>>>> "Are you sad because you won't be able to play with her anymore?" And
>>>>>> continue the cycle. And some point he'll give you a detail that is a
>>>>>> mistaken idea and you could help him by showing him that its a
>>>>>> mistaken idea. He might say, "I don't want to lose you." So at this
>>>>>> point you realize that the child is worried that he'll lose his only
>>>>>> remaining parent because he has already lost one parent. So here the
>>>>>> parent can say, "Oh.. well I'm very healthy, I'm probably not going to
>>>>>> die until I'm very old, like older than grandpa.. and by then you'll
>>>>>> be old like me. Did you know that most people die when they are very
>>>>>> old like older than grandpa?"
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'd agree this last part would be the right kind of response, but what
>>>>> are you really doing...correcting a mistaken idea, or recognizing an
>>>>> emotional need (with your emotions) and providing reassurance? If the
>>>>> second, then does it make what is happening between you and the child
>>>>> more or less clear by using this other vocabularly?
>>> 
>>> So about this empathy idea, I looked it up and there are many many
>>> definitions of it. Here's my definition:
>>> 
>>> Empathy: The ability to understand that someone else is (mentally) 
>>> hurting.
>> 
>> Empathy is actually a concept in the service of conformity. It has to 
>> do with respecting all emotions considered legitimate by social 
>> authority, but not others.
>> 
>> If you go find 20 examples of people actually using the concept, you 
>> may see what I mean. If not, post your counter examples.
>> 
>>> So what do you think of my definition of empathy?
>>> 
>>> Which parts of my explanation do you disagree with?
>> 
>> It's an ivory tower philosopher-intellectual type of definition, 
>> rather than something connected to reality. It's important to pay some 
>> attention to the world we live in if one wishes to comment well on it.
> 
> empathy is a matter of mirror neurons (see Giacomo Rizzolatti and/or 
> Vilayanur Ramachandran)

Empathy is behaviour not a bunch of neurons.

Mirror neurons are, at best, an explanation of how the knowledge required to act empathetically is instantiated in the brain, and the idea is no good even at doing that.

When I look at a behaviour like knitting, say, some neurons go off in my brain. If actually knitted myself, then a set of neurons would also go off in my head. The set of neurons that go off when I knit and the set that go off when I watch somebody knit overlap and the neurons that both sets have in common are called mirror neurons. I have not seen any indication in anything I have read that there is anything more to mirror neurons than that.

Specifically, there is no explanation of any respect in which mirror neurons differ from other neurons that explains why they go off in both cases. They don't have different kinds of axons or whatever.

Nor is there any explanation of what computation goes on in the brain to recognise knitting by me and knitting by somebody else as being the same. And even if there was such an explanation, without some anatomical difference between mirror and other neurons the explanation would be the mirror program not the neurons.

The problem is even worse than this: mirror neurons also contradict good explanations that we have. Two actions are only recognised as the same in the light of an interpretation: that is, in the light of knowledge that ties the two actions together. Human beings create new knowledge and a lot of our knowledge is not instantiated in genes. So there is no reason at all to expect that there will be any anatomically different category of cells that would instantiate that knowledge. There is no gene for knitting and so there is no reason to expect cells dedicated to knitting or recognising when other people are knitting.

Mirror neurons are explanationless science.

Alan