Empathy

I feel for others. I wonder if you do. If you don’t, reject this whole thing.

I have no reason to feel for others. I just do. I would assume that you feel for others too from here on.

I shall not talk about why we feel for others; it would just be a speculation that cannot be tested. I shall just ponder over what I have observed. Once again, if you don’t agree with my observations, reject this whole thing.

I see someone suffer, and I feel sympathy. I hear someone get away with injustice, and I become displeased. I anticipate someone getting a dressing down, and I feel worried for him. I note that someone gets what I feel that he deserves, and I feel glad.

Yet does it matter if that someone exists or not? As long as you think that such a person exists you will feel that way! It doesn’t matter if there really is a person to sympathise for. So, crying when watching TV or reading a book seems justified.

An extension of this would be that all emotions related to interpersonal interactions could be triggered without the existence of the people. I can love, hate, or envy someone who doesn’t exist. Perhaps you say I shouldn’t. But if I do then that’s just what it is! (On a side note, quite some time ago Hong Jia said that she would marry Harry Potter if she could. But that is really quite some time ago.)

I’m really just interacting with concepts. I talk to them, play with them, combine them, and laugh at them. They are constructs based on raw data. Since I have no direct access to raw data, all I have is really just concepts.

If I wake tomorrow and I find that someone important to me doesn’t exist, I am okay if my mind just rejects it as absurd, like it does all the time to absurd connections. But the concept of that person remains deeply etched enough, I think I’ll be quite sad. I hope it does not happen. There aren’t many important people to me. If it does, I hope that person can vanish from my mind too.