How does one feel what another person feels? I feel like I do, but it doesn't make any sense. It's not my nervous system, it is someone else's, and I don't see how their nerves can send signals to my brain.
The answer is quite obviously that they can't; that's me sending signals to my brain, presumably using mirror neurones and basing it on what I see, not what I feel. Now, I am no neuroscientist, but that's my hypothesis based on information gleaned from articles on neuroscience.
So what is empathy, then? I can't know that the other person (or, more frequently, animal) feels exactly what I think I would feel in that situation. The most plausible (i.e. sensible) theory of empathy I have come across is "tell your brain to behave like the other person's brain". For instance, if you want to find out what an angry person will do, activate your own brain's anger circuitry, and whatever the the output is will be your prediction. I have problems with this, both because I for obvious reasons distrust my ability to label other people's feelings correctly, but also because I can't just activate my brain's anger circuitry. It takes imagining pretty vividly a threatening situation, which will usually be very different from whatever the other person is angry with because I don't throw tantrums over little annoyances - though, maybe that bit is just nitpicking.
It is, of course, the nuances. Having always felt that I can read people relatively well - at least when I'm reading, not so much afterwards - I tend to get confused once they disavow my conclusions. And recently, the thought occurred to me: maybe we are reading them correctly, when we are reading them at all? (I can understand giving up on trying after an aspie childhood surrounded by neurotypical children.) Maybe they were lying about their own emotions. Maybe it was just another one of those "can't be honest with myself, so I'll just make this child doubt herself instead" things that adults do, at least those who work with children for some reason. Children do that, too, of course; their social instincts seem to be telling them that it is not a good idea to admit that someone else was right about you. I'm not saying I am right about this, but it is still a hypothesis that deserves some more thought.
The answer is quite obviously that they can't; that's me sending signals to my brain, presumably using mirror neurones and basing it on what I see, not what I feel. Now, I am no neuroscientist, but that's my hypothesis based on information gleaned from articles on neuroscience.
So what is empathy, then? I can't know that the other person (or, more frequently, animal) feels exactly what I think I would feel in that situation. The most plausible (i.e. sensible) theory of empathy I have come across is "tell your brain to behave like the other person's brain". For instance, if you want to find out what an angry person will do, activate your own brain's anger circuitry, and whatever the the output is will be your prediction. I have problems with this, both because I for obvious reasons distrust my ability to label other people's feelings correctly, but also because I can't just activate my brain's anger circuitry. It takes imagining pretty vividly a threatening situation, which will usually be very different from whatever the other person is angry with because I don't throw tantrums over little annoyances - though, maybe that bit is just nitpicking.
It is, of course, the nuances. Having always felt that I can read people relatively well - at least when I'm reading, not so much afterwards - I tend to get confused once they disavow my conclusions. And recently, the thought occurred to me: maybe we are reading them correctly, when we are reading them at all? (I can understand giving up on trying after an aspie childhood surrounded by neurotypical children.) Maybe they were lying about their own emotions. Maybe it was just another one of those "can't be honest with myself, so I'll just make this child doubt herself instead" things that adults do, at least those who work with children for some reason. Children do that, too, of course; their social instincts seem to be telling them that it is not a good idea to admit that someone else was right about you. I'm not saying I am right about this, but it is still a hypothesis that deserves some more thought.
