[ExI] Survival

[PJ Manney]

On Jan 3, 2008 8:46 AM, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> A related question, of deep practical interest to me, is the
> relationship of such probabilistic pattern-matching to issues of
> "empathy", which as popularly recognized is an evolved heuristic for
> modeling the internal state of intentional others, but quite limited
> relative to its potential more developed and technologically amplified
> form.

This is a good question to ask and I'm surprised no one else is giving
it a shot.  Can't resist...

Mirror neurons do seem the place to start (regardless of whether you
see the term as metaphoric or descriptive), but are not the whole
story.  The idea that we learn to emulate behavior by observation is
the first step in being able to empathize and predict.  But it's not
the entire circuit.  The magic moment is when your brain grasps that
the behaviors you and the observed both share come from related or
similar stimuli.  Poof!  Mental contact and empathy.  Or as you might
say, the confidence to begin to act upon pattern-matching.  Then you
are rewarded for appropriate or altruistic behavior.  The rest of the
confidence comes from sheer life-mileage and an increase in predicting
non-obvious behavior.  **See below.

The ability to observe and copy vs. the ability to intuit others
feelings from their behavior seem like related but separate skill sets
to me, like a Venn diagram's overlapping circles.  I've seen some
people excel at the first, but fail at the second and visa versa
(although the reverse seems rarer).

Of course, the fallacy lies in the assumption that all stimuli and
response are the same in all people.  This is where the empathetic get
in trouble.  It's easy to assume that a behavior comes from whatever
stimulus would trigger it in themselves.  We know that's not the case.
 Not only are people different in their likes, dislikes, appetites,
etc., but some may ape behavior that they don't actually feel to
elicit a specific response, like sociopaths.  (They would be excelling
at the first part of the feedback loop -- observing and copying -- and
not the second.)  Maybe because I work in a business where sociopathic
behavior is allowed to thrive, I personally find the quoted 4% of
sociopaths out of the entire population unnaturally low.  :)

**The mileage comes in when you grasp the previous paragraph, and see
that patterns that don't exist within your own head exist in others.
When you can predict those, then I'd say you've got some pretty great
people assessment skills.

So here is yet another way in which we each create our own reality,
beyond the personal reality we construct from our fallible senses and
variably wired brains.

This doesn't even get into the phrenology-like assumptions we make
regarding appearance, like a high forehead = intelligence, or low
bushy eyebrows = aggression.  Yes, I can see from an EP standpoint how
we might have developed some of these universal, subconscious
assumptions, but they can really throw a spanner in the empathetic and
predictive works.

The issue of technological amplification is, as I've discussed
elsewhere, a double edged sword, like all technology.  I can already
see both an increase and decrease of empathy from our present
communications tech boom as a result.  I'm hoping that there are ways
to push for a net increase that don't involve coercion, but I'm not
holding my breath.

[BTW, chocolate...  ;-) ]

PJ