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Can he really feel your pain? — 13 Comments

  1. I think it’s a load of poogie. Big words, “mirror touch synesthesia,” to make some enormous self-centered egos even bigger. And of course to suck in the gullible and really impress the hell out of them.

    It reminds me of the same tactic in renaming fibromyalgia (itself a made-up with no medical basis as to “fibro-“) as myalgic encephalopathy. Myalgia simply means “muscle ache” but “encephalopathy” means a pathologic brain process. Again, zero evidence such exists.

    So it’s all in the name. Few better places for pomposity than Boston, medically speaking.

  2. Sounds like global warming – climate change – extreme weather – handwringing over imaginary dying polar bears to me.

  3. When I first became ill, I had to wear gloves. Even bumping people would elicit a sensation that was too intimate (not a sexual thing, mind you… personal). Thinking my issue was mental illness, it was considered, by me, an allowance (the wearing of gloves). Now that I realize my problem was just a really bad heart, with a minor in ptsd, I am not sure what to think.

    After five years, or so, I learned to control and so could remove the gloves. Even my then woman, just casually, touch was too much, initially. It was her companionship that brought me through that. Hmm… I had died twice by then. Perhaps neurological issues, or… something else. Not one of my deaths, but one of my near deaths, was through the use of a neuro-toxin… organic phosphate(s). That might have had something to do with it as well.

    My empathy, and sympathy, now, depends on the person and situation. Some, who are guilty or party to their suffering, bother me not in the slightest. Those who played a part, even tangentially (say those who voted for many of the evils we are facing today) and who go on to pay a price, receive nothing. Those who suffer truly innocently can be a bit too unnerving.

  4. Oddly, there is nobody I know (including myself) who cannot relate a personal experience which made no “rational” sense.

    True, there are a lot of rational explanations for these non-rational experiences.

    One of my own experiences included a predictive circumstance I shared with others, me not understanding the predictive aspect.

    When the predictive circumstance occurred, it was (like the original experience) in the realm of amazing.

    Yet I cannot bring myself to fully and confidentially believe it was extraordinary (although I lean in that direction).

    Was there a piece of saran wrap on my foot? Or was my mind making that up?

    Everything is context with a large dose of confirmation bias. And yet reality does not submit to explanation.

    My totally unprovable intuition about life is that it is essentially narrative, a story. I think this is what Tolstoy says or is saying in War and Peace.

    To me, freedom, whatever it happens to be, is the most desirable condition of life.

    But as long as all of us disagree what consciousness means, or what it is, we will also disagree on what quality of life is important.

    Oliver Sacks should be read by all as a common ground for discussion.

    Or, the Acts of the Apostles, which provides more controversial common ground.

  5. Doom at 9:14 PM – –

    Fascinating post.

    Just a side remark, the older I have gotten the less I have been concerned about culpability. Culpability is still very important to me, just not as conclusive.

  6. Tonawanda,

    Strange, as I age, culpability becomes absolutely paramount. Then again, I am coming to faith. In the end, that is all it is about, to a degree. At least as a Christian, if you don’t accept your guilt, then have your faith be strong enough to overcome it through faith in the Redeemer, you will not enter heaven. Perhaps you are typical secular, or churchianity type?

  7. Ace has a content warning on the latest PP video: dismembering is involved.

    http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=358116

    Re mirror touch: I can’t feel that, but I get a sympathetic wince in my private parts when I see a man get racked. A fleeting physical OUCH. So I don’t watch a lot of those crazy videos….

  8. I don’t mirror pain — but I can ‘mirror’ sexual pleasure.

    Though I can’t claim I do so without touching.

    We all have are limitations — and I know mine.

  9. Neo said:
    “… in my experience, “a great deal of empathy” would be unusual among neurologists, who may self-select for lack of empathy.”

    Too much empathy is often counterproductive in a situation in which you are faced with human tragedy and misery on a daily basis. When my partner in my medical practice died of metastatic cancer it was like a closet door was opened and the emotions caused by all the horrible things I had seen over the years came tumbling out and smothered me. I almost had to quit my practice right then since the emotional trauma was so severe.

  10. Doom @ 12:38 AM – –

    It is really not possible for me to be unaware of my own culpability for anything in my life, let alone to feel less culpable as I get older.

    That is a function of conscience, which people have or do not have, or have in some degree or other.

    The culpability of every other person has become less meaningful to me as I get older, oddly enough probably because of Jesus, even though I am agnostic.

    I am an agnostic intensely interested in Jesus, who he was, what he meant (and means) and the significance of his life.

    True, Heaven and Hell are beyond my comprehension, and I am absolutely aware of the suggested consequences of my ignorance.

    In the meantime, I regard human beings in my life now with more a sense of empathy or sympathy than I did as a younger.

    I respect your pov and hope you are right about your anticipated reward.

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