Narrative, Time, and Identity: Mind, body, self, other, & empathy

Have you ever felt completely alone in the world? Have you ever felt like it was almost impossible to build a bridge from your own feelings to those of others?

How do we get out of our own heads and make meaningful connections with others? How do we know that the bodies moving around us are conscious humans like ourselves? How can large numbers of people in history have mistaken their fellow humans as being sub-human? How do we understand those different from ourselves while preserving their otherness or "alterity." What solicits empathy and what is its secret power? These are the questions associated with the puzzle of self and other.

Rene Descartes believed that we caught within our own sphere of consciousness and can only infer or guess that others are conscious. In its extreme form, solipsism, one believes that his/her mind is the only thing that exists in the universe; all else is the creation of one's mind.

The phenomenologists (Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger) argued that "being with others" or "intersubjectivity" is part of what it means to be conscious and exist as human. We are shaped by our interactions with others, even if we sometimes choose solitude.

"Empathy" (Einfuhlung) is a variant of an ancient concept, sympathy (sympatheia) that was brought into common parlance at the beginning of the 20th century by German psychologist Theodor Lipps. He describes it as having 3 characteristics:

Non-voluntary Unlike sympathy, which usually involves having a pro-attitude towards the other, empathy is something that happens to us without or even against our intending it

Kinesthetic mimicry Empathy involves a physical tendency to imitate what the other is feeling or doing. Lipps adopted a version of the James-Lange theory of emotion. It holds that emotion is the felt component of a physiological response to a perception. When I empathize, I vicariously feel what the other is feeling at an emotional and physical level.

Projection/absorption Empathy allows us to "feel inside" the other person's experience. We feel what it would be like to be that person and go through what he/she is going through. It allows us to jump the "self-other" gap and be part of their world.

In this famous article, Thomas Nagel argues that the same factors that make it difficult for us to imagine what being a bat is like also prevent us from reducing consciousness to a set of physical events or processes. Consciousness has an "inside" ("what it feels like") or a set of "qualia" or sensations. No matter how much we know about how a bat is constructed, we can never fully know what it's like to be one. Does the same go for the human brain? Would a fully-articulated brain map yield an understanding of "what it feels like" to be conscious?

Collect your knowledge of what you know about bats (or click on this link or watch the video below) and try your hardest to describe, imagine, and feel what it would be like to be a bat. Then discuss whether you agree with Nagel's application of this experience to human consciousness. Does our experience of trying to empathize with bats teach us anything about the challenges of explaining human consciousness?

Humans may not be alone in experiencing empathy. Various kinds of creatures appear to be able to read each other's emotional behavior.

Animals communicate their emotions through their gestures, vocalizations, facial expressions, and physical movements, such as suddenly jumping. On a more primitive level, insects such as termites release chemicals that signal fear or anger to other insects.

Do you share the view that animals can experience emotions? Would this hold even for creatures like reptiles or insects that largely lack a limbic system (the emotional center of the brain)?

Do you agree that animals are capable of empathically-connecting with one another? What would you point to as examples of such connections?

Psychologists have done many studies on how empathy develops or fails to develop in individuals. Why, for example, do sociopaths appear to entirely lack empathy? They seem to be able to detect that others in pain but are not bothered by it. Thus they do not truly "share" the victim's pain.

Studies have shown that children raised in an uncaring, abusive, or traumatic environment often fail to develop empathy. If they are punished for expressing feelings or if causing pain is celebrated and praised, their empathic responsiveness is curtailed. High levels of stress or inner conflict can limit empathy. And misjudgements of situations or cultural contexts can also get in the way.

The reverse is also true. Children raised in a nurturing, affectionate environment are more likely to develop empathy. Those who are exposed to stories, poems, plays, films, shows where a variety of emotions are manifest will develop a larger repertoire of emotions they can empathize with. It also helps if respected models show empathy or if empathizing is praised or rewarded by authority figures. Anything that encourages self-reflection and self-knowledge also encourages growth in the capacity to empathize.