On Alternative Belief Systems and Empathy

Modern, well-educated humans are great at many things. They can paint amazing works of art. They can build 100-story buildings. They can write a computer program to sell sheets online for chrissake!

But one thing I do not think many modern, well-educated humans are good at is empathy. We are taught from an early age that the world is rational, that science explains (nearly) everything. From this vantagepoint, human behavior is supposed to be predictable and make sense. We all supposedly want the same things- more money, more things, more success, a beautiful mate, etc. But when someone deviates from this orthodoxy in some way, the response of nearly everyone in society, including the most well-educated and successful among us, is invariably bafflement followed by derision. They cannot put themselves in the mind of the deviating person, they can only interpret the events of the deviating person's life through their own mind - they cannot empathize.

What people fail to recognize is that experience is subjective. The mind is a sort of algorithm that takes in information and then interprets it in a certain way to make that person have a certain emotion or series of thoughts. Now most people living in our society do indeed have fairly predictable responses to the information that comes at them - going to a concert makes you happy, doing poorly at work makes you sad, etc., because for reasons of upbringing and (sometimes) genetics, certain things elicit certain responses in most of us. But not everyone's mind algorithm works the same way.

For example, take the Buddhist monk. Instead of success, material goods, and a beautiful mate, the monk seeks only inner peace. He lives a minimalist lifestyle, taking pleasure in rituals, nature, and silence (oversimplifying but you get the idea). "That's crazy! He doesn't have an iPod, doesn't have the internet, doesn't have a sweet house! He wears the same clothes every day! He doesn't have a powerful, interesting job!" says the Westerner. But in that monk's mind, he is very fulfilled. HE DOESN'T WANT ANY OF THE THINGS WE VALUE! (Except friendship and love which are pretty universal- some people don't want these things but I can't think of a group or society who doesn't) A Westerner cannot wrap his mind around this and the response ranges from "I bet he wishes he had a mansion in Bel Air!" (disbelief) to "he's insane" (derision).

There is of course actually some real validity to his viewpoint- living in our image, power, and money-conscious society can be pretty stressful at times, especially when you are not succeeding in one of these areas- you are feeling fat, or you have a terrible job, or you can't afford new clothes. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements and media reinforcing these values for us in order to sell more things, because these values- image, power, money- are the perfect values to get people to buy more things, especially when used in combination with envy ("that guy looks so good on this GQ cover - I want to buy those driving shoes to be as good as him"). But sometimes, especially when one is, say, in a beautiful natural setting or looking down on a major world city from an airplane, one realizes that most of the things we care about are pretty unimportant and society is basically a big game with certain rules that we accept in our minds, not some definitive real thing.

And many movie stars, CEOs, and professional athletes are among the most pyschologically troubled people in our society. "But they are so successful and have so much money and have access to so many attractive mates!" says the Westerner. But in that actress's mind, she thinks "sure I have a great career, but I can't find a man who loves me and cares about me and makes me happy," or the CEO thinks "yes I have a private jet, but Nardelli has a Gulfstream IV!" or the athlete thinks, "I can't believe my grandfather died last year, he was so important to me I miss him so much." Again, society's reaction to succesful, rich people being depressed or anxious is bafflement ("WTF! This guy has ten Bentleys, he can't be that broken up about his grandfather") or derision ("poor Jennifer can't find a husband- boo hoo!"). But in these people's mind algorithms, whatever they still lack or are hung up about (love, family, etc.) is the most important thing to consider, and that factor makes them upset. They aren't looking at their situation from a broad "rational" perspective like we are, saying "I have it pretty good," they are looking at it from their own perspective "on the ground" in a second-by-second way and they get can get caught up in the problems any of us have.

Or take aberrant self-destructive behavior, like the Yale guy who ran around Times Square naked a couple years ago. He obviously had a mental breakdown. His mind algorithm was perceiving some negativity in the world- maybe it was a breakup he was upset about, or maybe it was stress about his job, or his grades were bad in a grad program, or maybe it was something even more minor that he just perceived as a huge deal, it doesn't matter- and that negativity and stress became so strong in his mind that he snapped and stripped naked to run around Times Square as a release valve. He is fortunate actually that this is all that happened, as some people face high levels of stress and negativity and end up killing themselves and/or others. When anything on this spectrum of aberrant behaviors from shocking behavior to death occurs, the reaction of society is again bafflement ("Why would he do such a thing?") or derision ("That naked guy is a weird freak!"). But what really is happening is that this person is interpreting the events of his or her life that "normal" people can deal with and getting worked up about them to dangerous levels. It is not their fault, it is just that that's how his or her mind algorithm works. But most of us are incapable of understanding that someone could really interpret the world in this aberrant way, that someone could really be that despondent or stressed when we, the rational normal people, would say "it's not that big of a deal." Of course, unlike the monks, these people's aberrant minds really do need to be "fixed" as they are dangerous to themselves and others. But there should be less demonization of people with mental illness, and more empathy.

Philosopher Robert Nozick came up with the notion of the "Experience Machine" which you would plug into and feel happy all the time, but the catch is that you would no longer experience "real life." But we all live in different kinds of "Experience Machines" already- our mind algorithms, which certainly don't solely make us feel happy! They do, however, interpret the "real world" in certain subjective ways. There are (most likely) some objective truths, but in most of our daily lives, we are much more influenced by our subjective interpretations than by objective truths. And so if there is one takeaway, it is that since we can't control how our subjective mind algorithms will interpret the "real world," have some empathy for people who think differently than you do.

Note: I found this definition of "empathy" on Wikipedia- my namesake couldn't have defined it better:
D. M. Berger: The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes.^[7]