Devil's advocate

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Vociferous, Feb 5, 2018.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Experience is the ultimate natural teacher.
     
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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You need to learn the difference in meaning between the words "abstract knowledge" and "experiential knowledge"

    I'll make it easy;
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstract

    This allows for impersonal Sympathetic mental understanding.

    As opposed to:
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/experience

    This compels a personal Empathetic physical response.

    It's intersting to read that you are asking others to abstractly assume the role of "Devil's Advocate", while you in fact have assumed the role of "Devil's Advocate" in this discussion..

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    Last edited: Feb 15, 2018
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  5. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Again:
    Empathy is generally divided into two major components:[48]
    • Affective empathy, also called emotional empathy:[49] the capacity to respond with an appropriate emotion to another's mental states.[48] Our ability to empathize emotionally is based on emotional contagion:[49] being affected by another's emotional or arousal state.[50]
    • Cognitive empathy: the capacity to understand another's perspective or mental state.[21][48][51] The terms cognitive empathy and theory of mind or mentalizing are often used synonymously, but due to a lack of studies comparing theory of mind with types of empathy, it is unclear whether these are equivalent.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Types

    Only somatic empathy, a third class, is a response to direct stimuli.
    Affective empathy is a response to "another's emotional or arousal state".
    Cognitive empathy is the mental modeling of another's state.

    Psychopathy and narcissism have been associated with impairments in affective but not cognitive empathy, whereas bipolar disorder and borderline traits have been associated with deficits in cognitive but not affective empathy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Types

    We might be able to make some inferences from a person's inability to understand different types of empathy.

     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I have been looking for an example of experiencing the emotion of empathy, while witnessing something extraordinary that goes far beyond the feeling of sympathy or can be described in the abstract. You must "experience" this, as the audience did.
    I think I have found one example of such a transcendent event.

    Start the clip @ 1:35 and experience "empathy"
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    "Only somatic empathy, a third class, is a response to direct stimuli." Yes, direct stimulus of the MNS

    "Affective empathy is a response to another's emotional or arousal state." Yes, direct stimulus of the MNS

    "Cognitive empathy is the mental modeling of another's state." Yes, direct stimulus of the MNS

    OTOH, sympathy is the response to indirect stimulus of the MNS

    As I said before (which you apparently missed), the mirror neural system of the brain (MNS) is the seat of any and all mental cognitive and/or internal physical experiences, direct or indirect.
    It is the subconscious cognitive processing of many types of external and internal information or stimuli.

    This is why the term contains the word "mirror"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology)

     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2018
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, all are types of "empathy"

    Obviously that implied ad hominem does not apply to me, I do understand the different types of empathy. No matter how you sort them, they are all expressions of "empathy".

    What happened to "sympathy" ?
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2018
  10. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    If all are types of empathy, you seem to be saying that cognitive empathy is a "subconscious replication of another person's nonverbal signals".
    In psychology, mentalization is the ability to understand the mental state, of oneself or others, that underlies overt behaviour. Mentalization can be seen as a form of imaginative mental activity that lets us perceive and interpret human behaviour in terms of intentional mental states (e.g., needs, desires, feelings, beliefs, goals, purposes, and reasons).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalization
    You keep claiming all empathy is an autonomic mirror neuron response, but if so, why would we think better of people who were more empathetic? According to you, it's not in their ability to control.
    I didn't say that did apply to you, but you do seem to be trying to agree while contradicting your own argument.

    "Sympathy is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters." If you were putting yourself in the shoes of someone by pitying them, they would have to be expressing pity.
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You've answered your own question. We don't admire people's subconscious empathic responses. They can be of all sorts, good and/or bad, based on their learned mirrored experience. Sharks enter into a state of "feeding frenzie". Their MNS exists only of "food means eating", there is no empathy nor sympathy.

    OTOH, a hungry person will eat what's available and if they are closely related to another hungry person, they may share, that's empathy.

    But we admire sympathetic people, i.e. people who deal out food to the poor , while they themselves are not hungry. That's expressing pity or sympathy. Like doctors who will voluntarily travel to assist in time of a natural disaster.

    An interesting exception is found in The Bonobo chimp;
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/bonobos-share-with-strangers-first-13-01-03/

    But I will grant that, IMO, empathy and sympathy are related phenomena, both generated by the MNS. In the case of the Bonobo, it seems to be a little of both.
    The rudimentary imprinting that generosity teaches the MNS to respond in kind at a later time.
    "Give and you shall receive".
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2018
  12. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    We don't admire the empathetic?
    Between that, and your persistence for using idiosyncratic definitions, I'm done here. There's no middle ground to be found.
    Cheers.
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Nothing to be admired in empathy, it's a common trait of all people who have a normally developed brain.
    I gave you the middle ground, you just failed to recognize it. But I can sympathize with your mental frustration......

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  14. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Have a banana. It helps.
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    That was a nice sympathetic response. If you were a Bonobo it would in fact be an empathic response..

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