IUBio

empathy may be a form of primitive hypothesis

J C null at nowhere.net
Mon Nov 10 16:14:58 EST 2003


On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 10:43:39 -0600, James Michael Howard
<jmhoward at arkansas.net> wrote:

>Empathy may be the formation of hypotheses in response to emotional stimuli that
>manifest themselves in structures connected with emotion.  Hypotheses of this
>type may be a primitive ability which may increase group cohesiveness.
>Hypotheses of this type may be the bases of religion as opposed to hypotheses
>generated by the advanced forebrain.  These two types of ability to form
>hypotheses may separate religion (emotion) from science.
> 
>James Michael Howard
>www.anthropogeny.com 

Now that is sufficiently vague while at the same time being all
encompasing.

I doubt those four sentences describe anything significant.
Particularly since operational definitions of your terms are missing.

Is "Empathy the formation of hypotheses in response to emotional
stimuli" OR is Empathy simply THE EMOTIONAL RESPONSE to EXTERNAL
STIMULI?.

I go with the latter. Since I don't know what "emotional stimuli" are
I'd prefer to look at "stimuli" as simply  information that can be
perceived.

Ah, to quibble philosphic... I miss that.


-- JC



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