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transgender community which is irrelevant to this post got me thinking about empathy.
I think empathy as it is often described - the ability to imagine oneself in the position of another, realise how one would wish to be treated and treat the other accordingly - seems to me a relatively primitive conception.
I would say a better idea of empathy is one which entails possessing a model of the other's mental state such that one may have a reasonable understanding of the other's thoughts, feelings and desires and consequently respond to the other as they are/would wish to be responded to, rather than as oneself would wish.
Gah. It is too late and I am too tired to be lucid... best time to try.
transgender community which is irrelevant to this post got me thinking about empathy.I think empathy as it is often described - the ability to imagine oneself in the position of another, realise how one would wish to be treated and treat the other accordingly - seems to me a relatively primitive conception.
I would say a better idea of empathy is one which entails possessing a model of the other's mental state such that one may have a reasonable understanding of the other's thoughts, feelings and desires and consequently respond to the other as they are/would wish to be responded to, rather than as oneself would wish.
Gah. It is too late and I am too tired to be lucid... best time to try.
