Re: [TCS] What is empathy

On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Alan Forrester
<alanmichaelforrester-gM/[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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.

You say there is a contradiction with good explanations....can you
explain why this is necessarily the case? For example, the good
explanations you refer to refer to something that occurs in brains,
which means the underlying genetics of brains facilitate the effect.
The only constraint that I can see relates to the interface between
the physically expressed genetics and the resulting UKC effect in that
there has to be some sort of separation/independence. But beyond that,
there doesn't seem to be any constraints on how the physical brain
accomplishes the effect.
Going with your opinion for a moment....is there a special reason why
the brain must not include neurons with this specific mirroring
function whereas deployment of specialized neurons is generally
acceptable? Or is it that you think any kind of specialization at the
neuronal level contradicts your good explanation? If so...why?
Also...in BoI DD mentions whole regions of neurons becoming
specialized for language in the run-up to the jump to UKC
universality. Do you disagree with him about that, or is it the case
regions of standard neurons can become specialized to a special
function without contradicting the good explanation, but individual
neurons cannot become internally specialized to some role? In which
case why is specialization at the scale of the role of a neuron not
allowed, where specialization of networks of neurons are. What happens
between these two scales that makes the advent of one a contradiction
of your good explanation while the advent of the other not?
>