The empathy of a member of a particular species is determined by a combination of 3+1 separate sets of evolutionary options working together:
0) State awareness options (Theory of Mind, self and other)
1) Signalling options (Flexibility and range of emotion and communication expression)
2) Signal detection options (Track another's gaze direction with your peripheral vision)
3) Signal processing options (Making sense of the set of signals detected)
To empathise fully, both parties need to have matching sets of evolutionary empathic options. To say that autistic people, or men, or lizards have no empathy is probably a little simplistic.
Differing sets of empathic evolutionary options may still be highly compatible. Man and Dog being a good case in point. Where a participant in an exchange expects the other participant to have a different set of empathic evolutionary options then communication can be more 'forgiving'. This is why many autistic people find foreign cultures to be easier, at least for the first few months until our new found foreign friends adjust. We never expect our family pets to tell us we look nice in that dress either.
We hypothesise that training autistic people to clarify to others how the autistic subset of empathic evolutionary options differs from the full set that is enjoyed by those who are considered unremarkable to a psychiatrist may help members of society at large to integrate properly with it's autistic members.
Finally, do not assume that a lack of detection and processing options means lack of signalling options.
We won't be silenced by those who won't be silenced. Quis custurd pudding et π.
Thursday, 8 March 2012
When is a pair half a couple?
Think inside the box, outside the box, whatever the box, but probably not that box or the other box. This box.
Box (abbr.) A load of.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Religion is dying for the first chai of the day.
Why would anyone get up that early in Goa? Only the yogini seeking chai having no facility to make her own in her rented kitchen. The corner cafe with the statue of Lord Siva out front has just opened so she makes her way over to it, asking for chai. The boy who works the cafe, maybe 9 or 10 years of age, tells her with glee that "chai is coming, wait wait".
She waits, outside, smoking.
The boy comes out with a glass of chai in hand, she reaches for it and the boy flashes her a look which says: "Are you crazy? You want to die?"
She returns her hand to her bag strap.
He empties the first chai of the day at the feet of the statue of Lord Siva out front.
Maybe in the past it was common knowledge that if Siva did not get his morning chai then there'd be destructions? Just like that famous study with the monkeys in the cage with the ladder, the bananas and the water spray, the eternal truth of 'feed the boss or he will eat you' while none of the people in the cage know why we must always offer the first chai to a memory or a story about a man or a god or a dream.
She waits, outside, smoking.
The boy comes out with a glass of chai in hand, she reaches for it and the boy flashes her a look which says: "Are you crazy? You want to die?"
She returns her hand to her bag strap.
He empties the first chai of the day at the feet of the statue of Lord Siva out front.
Maybe in the past it was common knowledge that if Siva did not get his morning chai then there'd be destructions? Just like that famous study with the monkeys in the cage with the ladder, the bananas and the water spray, the eternal truth of 'feed the boss or he will eat you' while none of the people in the cage know why we must always offer the first chai to a memory or a story about a man or a god or a dream.
Friday, 2 March 2012
E-Sacrifice to Mama
"It is done. The disgraced tribesperson has been cast from the page and may not return until that person makes a new identity and ceases to use multi-commas,,,, in online comments."
thAut for the day: You can't educate people without offending them.
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