tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14410967.post5451541652137374590..comments2024-03-25T19:00:40.046-06:00Comments on The Constructive Curmudgeon: The Empathy Machine: An Unfinished EssayDouglas Groothuis, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08766692378954258034noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14410967.post-50850000189050698672011-10-11T03:40:22.216-06:002011-10-11T03:40:22.216-06:00Potentially of interest is this post "How to ...Potentially of interest is this post "How to Understand People Better" at Lesswrong. Not exactly based upon this thought experiment, but it involves an effort to improve one's capacity for empathy: http://lesswrong.com/lw/818/how_to_understand_people_better/Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10992458507944205149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14410967.post-65866018731657921932011-10-11T03:40:04.677-06:002011-10-11T03:40:04.677-06:00Potentially of interest is this post "How to ...Potentially of interest is this post "How to Understand People Better" at Lesswrong. Not exactly based upon this thought experiment, but it involves an effort to improve one's capacity for empathy: http://lesswrong.com/lw/818/how_to_understand_people_better/Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10992458507944205149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14410967.post-85038144662467383202011-09-03T09:41:41.457-06:002011-09-03T09:41:41.457-06:001. I think such a machine is logically impossible ...1. I think such a machine is logically impossible because one cannot feel someone else's pain without being them i.e. you can't feel how their pain feels to them (cf Nagel's bat)<br /><br />2. I think we already have and use such a machine routinely - it's called imagination. And if you're looking for a virtue ethical analysis of this, Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments is a good place to start (he developed Hume's model of emotional contagion). Martha Nussbaum is always going on about how reading novels builds up your empathetic imagination; Smith focused more on drama.<br /><br />TMS Opening lines<br /><br />How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.Thomas R. Wellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16009016049947278898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14410967.post-45201671661219828762011-07-23T11:14:37.413-06:002011-07-23T11:14:37.413-06:00Interesting essay, Doug!
I have often wondered wh...Interesting essay, Doug!<br /><br />I have often wondered what it would be like to experience someone else's life in the first person and to be able to retain the totality of that experience, in some manner, as a part of my own. While I might like to think that I am a fairly empathetic person in so far as being somewhat sensitive to, and curious about, the thoughts and feelings of others, I am ever aware that my imaginings of what other people may actually experience can only be, at best, very crude approximations constructed through my own cognitive and emotive capacities coupled with my own experiences in the world.<br /><br />What an educational experience, a tremendous opportunity into real insight, it would have be to actually experience the perceptions of others throughout the broad expanse of human experience!<br /><br />I'm somewhat puzzled by your determination that Theravadan Buddhist, and non-dualist in general, would be incapable of deriving any moral benefit from such a profound experience of empathy. Of course I haven't experienced the world through either your unique mind nor that of a generic non-dualist (not that such a creature actually exists), so what do I know?<br /><br />Perhaps we need to be very careful in not confusing our thought experiments with reality, what do you think?<br /><br />SteveSteve Schulerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17507446648186799208noreply@blogger.com