On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 6:44 PM Alok Singh <[email protected]> wrote:

> What you have said is unobjectionable, though I am not entirely sure if you
> are making an argument or stating a tautology.


I was trying to say that however much one might believe (rightly or
wrongly) that one has empathy, the act of perspective taking shifts things
from a domain of belief to practice.

I do not have anything productive to add to this thread and I am afraid I
might end up repeating myself.

Thaths


> I understood it as
> - empathy is a skill that can be developed
> - local maxima are not Truth
>
> The mental processes that underpin empathy are the ones I use to manipulate
> or otherwise "convince" someone of something. I see it as a mechanism that
> can used to various ends my myself or by others on me. Something like
> hunger or lust. So in this sense, I do not see it as a skill that can be
> improved by practice.
>
> Lastly, local maxima are all we have. I see this as a consquence of Arrow's
> impossibility theorem. One can move from one to the other and I can't tell
> if this is in anyway different than if I never change.
>


-- 
Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
Carl:  Nuthin'.
Homer: D'oh!
Carl:  Unless you're crooked.
Homer: Woo-hoo!

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