About empathy: what is a good way for someone who experiences less empathy to relate to more normal humans?
About lying: I do not regard it as helpful to consider whether C is lying. Instead, one should ask whether there exists an isomorphism between C’s purported beliefs and an accurate model of the person’s whole mind, and if so, what that isomorphism is.
As an example from my experience, consider the exchange:
“Oh, hi, [given name]. How are you?” ″Oh, fine, thanks.”
The second person, despite not being “fine” by more objective metrics, need not be regarded as lying, so long as “Oh, fine, thanks”, is simply taken to mean “I recognize that you have taken effort to express concern to me, and would like to reciprocate by showing friendliness and not bothering you with more details about myself than are appropriate for our relationship.”
Instead of asking such a nebulous, abstract question as, “Is the second person lying by claiming to be fine?” I contend that one should focus on the question of how those statements should map to a model of reality, and if there exists a concise description for how it does so.
About empathy: what is a good way for someone who experiences less empathy to relate to more normal humans?
About lying: I do not regard it as helpful to consider whether C is lying. Instead, one should ask whether there exists an isomorphism between C’s purported beliefs and an accurate model of the person’s whole mind, and if so, what that isomorphism is.
As an example from my experience, consider the exchange:
“Oh, hi, [given name]. How are you?”
″Oh, fine, thanks.”
The second person, despite not being “fine” by more objective metrics, need not be regarded as lying, so long as “Oh, fine, thanks”, is simply taken to mean “I recognize that you have taken effort to express concern to me, and would like to reciprocate by showing friendliness and not bothering you with more details about myself than are appropriate for our relationship.”
Instead of asking such a nebulous, abstract question as, “Is the second person lying by claiming to be fine?” I contend that one should focus on the question of how those statements should map to a model of reality, and if there exists a concise description for how it does so.