Again, who said anything about teaching "the experience of pain"?
In effect, you did. Empathy is experiencing the same chemical reactions which produce the same emotional experience in the observer as in the observed. This cannot be taught, only emotionally experienced. You cannot teach emotion, you can describe and define it. But unless you experience emotional empathy any teaching is just words.
I have too. Maybe you should study a few other subjects?
If you can recommend a link I'd be grateful.
Mirror neurons provide a template for abstracting the thoughts/feelings of others (theory of mind). But humans can go beyond only reacting to similar stimuli. That's what cognitive abstraction means.
I admit that I invented the term and may have confused the issue, the term does not seem to exist.
Brittanica only defines "abstraction" (cognitive process):
The capacity for making and employing abstractions is considered to be essential to higher cognitive functions, such as forming judgments,
learning from experience, and making
inferences.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/abstraction
Perhaps I should have used "cognitive emotion". But I'm sure you would not agree to that either so lets test it.
How can you verbally teach the emotional/physical experience of "freefalling"? You can describe it, but the only way to
experience it is on a big and fast roller coaster in an amusement park (lots of screaming) and I think they also make you
experience it during parachute training in the military. Bungy dropping you from a 50' high tower or using a wind tunel.
These things cannot be abstracted except as theory. They must be experienced to understand your body's reactions to great stress.
If you have been in a war you will be able to empathize with PTSD (shellshock) and sympathize with the family which has to deal with it's symptoms.
The mirror neuron system is only the primitive precursor for human empathy. Our intellect has broadened that ability.
I never said that was not the case. In fact I specifically mentioned that the MNS allows you to abstractly anticipate what comes next.
If you can't see how abstraction allows for more than simple abstraction of one person's stimuli to another, I think we're at an impasse.
Experiencing is very, very different than simple abstraction of one person's stimuli to another. (Does statement even make sense?) Empathy is not a mental abstraction, it is a simultaneous emotional experience. Watch a football game and witness a mass empathic response when the home team scores.
Abstracting is conscious
thinking, a dispassionate mental classroom exercise.
Experiencing is an involuntary
emotional experience, producing the exact same real chemical physical reactions
in the observer as in the observed
I am an excellent swimmer and not in the least uncomfortable in the water, I can free dive to about 40' and I
used to train diving with the Dutch Olympic diving team. High Tower, no problem. Swan dives, no problem. Backward diving, no problem. This was during my HS days. School was next to the indoor swimming pool.
Later, in the US, I was playing with a small band in Las Vegas, I went scuba diving with some ex-UDT divers (then bar tenders) in Lake Havasu, and after some brief instructions in case of trouble, we dived down to 100'. It was a great experience, until after awhile I experienced Nitrogen Narcosis from improper breathing for that depth.
I can tell you that no amount of abstraction (except perhaps under the influence of LSD) can compare to the disorientation I experienced. I had a distinct feeling of spinning and lost all sense of what was up or down. My mind was no longer in control.
After I rapped on my tank to let my buddies know I was in trouble, they rushed to assist me. One picked up an empty beer-can, filled it with air and let it go. The intent was to show me which was
up. In my confused state I thought he was making fun of me. The other diver had a speargun. As he was swimming towards me it was pointed at me. For a moment I thought he was going to kill me.
It took all the logic and reason I could muster to convince myself they were my friends and were coming to help me, at which time they both signaled to me which way was up and grabbed my arms and started ascending, while signaling that all was well and blowing air bubbles to show me to breathe normally. At about 30' we halted for what seemed to be a long time, to allow my body to absorb the excess nitrogen, after which we ascended to the surface. It was an experience I shall never forget.
Everytime I see a scuba diver enter the water, I feel the rush of anxiety I experienced that time. This mirror impression has now diminished and I have practically forgotten how close I came to death, had my diving buddies not been there to help me. Their professional experience and empathy with my predicament saved me, which I shall never forget. Later they told me this happens often with rookie divers and even if you manage to make it to the surface, the bends (expanded nitrogen bubbles) may kill you anyway. This why deep water research vessels always have a decompression chamber, for precisely that purpose.
This you cannot teach in a classroom as an abstract mental exercise, soon forgotten, unless you are an avid diver.
I am too old now to scuba dive, but the experience taught me the dangers of over-confidence and lack of rigorous practice before entering a hostile domain.
I am afraid you are underestimating the depth and importance of the MNS in the sequence from subconscious cognition, to conscious action.
p.s. In water the atmospheric pressure doubles in the first 30'. If @30' down you take a deep breath from your tank and hold it while ascending, you can blow your lungs apart.
p.p.s. did you ever watch the Anil Seth presentation on Ted talks? If not, I recommend it.
He addresses the phenomena of
empathy which we use everyday in many subtle ways.
https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality[/QUOTE]
