our existance : Empathic in nature?

Quantum Quack

Quantum Quack

Life's a tease...
Valued Senior Member
In my research in to the psychic (metaphysical) realms I have come to the conclusion that just about all of our thoughts, feelings and actions are empathic in nature.

WE are like bells that ring to the ambient sounds.

Every thought is impacted on empathically by others. etc.

Any one care to comment?
 
Please explain why you believe this is true and then i will give you my comment, and no i do not believe that our thoughts and feeling are empathetic in nature.
 
The fact that you have read my post means that I have had an impact on you, so much so that you have responded to which I thank you for.

Every word I type sitting in my little appartment here in front of my Pc monitor listening to Celine Deon has an impact on you. I consider your reaction to be empathic in nature.

Your thoughts about what I have written are dependent on what I have written and intended to write and an infinite amount of other factors.

Thats the basics I guess
 
Of course if you think of it that way. Every action has a reaction. If I chose not to answer your post then what you had writting caused an impact on me therefore i decided to refuse to reply to your topic. I don't think there's much of a debate on this topic. Unless of course i misunderstood you.
 
All I want to say is that all thoughts are creative. They have the ability to create whatever in your reality. They also affect everyone, especially the ones with similar thoughts.
 
We can't be purely emphathic for several reasons

a) No free will. My emotions and thoughts are dependent entirely on my surroundings.

b) We would mirror the emotions running around. If someone were to meet me with love, I should react with love since I'd recieve their love and reflect it off, and everyone all around me would show love as well. This does not happen. I could greet someone friendly and get flipped off in return.

c) Like mirror reflecting light, the light has to come from somewhere. If it does not come from us, where does it come from?

Now, there is no doubt that we do to some extent absorb the emotions of others. A smile can brighten my mood as a cuss word could darken it. It could also have no effect. Basically, we are all sources, and we can also be empathic to some degree. Maybe.
 
A) Who says we have free will?

B) You must have misunderstood quantum quack's post. We do not mirror off the emotions around us, but rather are forced to react to these emotions. And these emotions impact us in some way, some how.

C) What? Light come's from some kind of source. While we as a people cannot produce this light, there is a source which does, and we simply reflect this light.
 
A) I do, otherwise I have no responsibility for anything. If I have no responsibility, then I can not abide by morality, as I can't control my actions.

B) I didn't misunderstood, he said we were bells that rang to ambient sounds. I.e., we generate nothing and reflect everything. But as I said, someone can walk up to me and show love, and I can give back something completely opposite. Thus I'm not just ringing to an ambient "emotion". I'm taking in an emotion, processing it, and flinging back my own reaction. If I was purely empathic, I'd identify and show his emotion. But as I'm not, my reaction (and there has to be one obviously as no reaction is also a reaction) is dependent on what I do with the emotion.

C) We simply reflect this light (and you didn't answer my question as to what the source was)? You just said we weren't mirrors, but you are saying we reflect this emotion light. At any rate, I guess I'm just a mindless puppet if this is true, because all I can do is show whatever the closest diety is showing. Very depressing. Btw, the closest diety must be feeling skepticism because I'm feeling rather skeptic right now.

This whole discussion boils down to an age old discussion anyways. Are the actions I do a product of my environment, or are they a product of my free will plus my environment? It's not limited to just emotions, but actions and stuff as well.
 
I think to argue free will one needs to define it.
What tis dis ting called Free will?

How do you define it? ( thread started on this topic)
 
C) Lol i thought you ment actual light not emotions. (thought you were trying to change the topic there).

A) You still haven't explained to me why you have free will. Why is it you think that your actions are determined by your free will? If you've ever heard of predestination then maybe you will understand what im trying to get at. We may think that we have free will, but in reality we do not.

B) Maybe im misunderstanding Quantum's description sense i still don't see what you mean. But lets say that what you say is true. If quantum's theory was true then being shown love we would reflect love or atleast react with love. Who says we do not. If we truly have free will then we wouldn't reflect this love but we would still react with love to this person generating this emotion. While deep down we want to reflect this emotion generally there is something to stop of from doing this. Maybe the idea of showing this emotion to a stranger is wrong to you, and this idea is so strong that it will block this emotion and cause us to lash out in hatred or some other form of madness. Yet as much as you want to argue about it, people are naturally attracted to those who show love and happiness to strangers, how they express their own emotions is different but ultimately we are still, IN SOME WAY, reflecting their emotions, even if it isn't openly.

This of course only applies if there is such thing as free will.
 
Quantum Quack, you really cannot define free will without comparing it to an opposing element or idea which exists already. Predestination is a farely common idea and i personally believe in such a thing. People believe that free will is the ability to make any choice we want no mattter what. But even that sense is wrong since there is always something to effect our decision. our enviroment always effects our decisions in some way, and in such a degree that it ALWAYS happens no matter what. If our enviroments nad other's actions effect OUR decisions then free will does not exist. And this is expelling the idea of predestination. Even without predestination free will stil does not exist.
 
Here's the thing. The reflecting thing excludes the idea of free will because once shown an emotion, I'm forced to reflect that emotion. If I had free will, then I could choose not to show love, for example. What we become, if we are merely reflectors, is a very complicated function that takes inputs and gives outputs. Some people argue that is all we are anyways though.

Why do I believe in free will? Well, it's kinda like saying why do I believe I exists. I reflect upon my thoughts, I reflect upon my decisions, and they feel like my own, and not forced by some entity. I can't prove to you that some being isn't forcing me to do something and making me think I wanted to do that thing though. But here is how I look at it. I'm a Christian. I can't believe in a God that holds us accountable for our actions and believe in a God that controls our every action (because we don't have free will) at the same time, because how can God hold us accountable for actions he made us do?

Anyways, it comes down to the old argument (besides the free will thing), are my actions a product of my environment only (i.e., if I bring up someone in identical conditions with an identical body, but with a different soul or whatever, will they make the same choices)., or does free will factor into it.
 
You're haven't made any argument contradicting what i just said. You're only repeating yourself.
 
First let us define empathy:

1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this.


Which meaning are you refering to?
 
It is worth noting that when I talk of empathy I mean empathy with everthing and not necessarilly focussed on one frame of reference.

A man and a woman go to a party, they are strangers the see each other , the man gets the hots for the woman but the woman gets the hots for another man.

You say that she should get the hots for the man if empathy exists but this of course implies that empathy is in some way restricted just to two individuals and not all individuals. Empathy is not as simple as a couple of mirrors reflecting off each other but more like an infinite number of mirrors reflecting of each other.

The word I use to "reflect" this comment is "Intraflectivity". Where by in a group of people say at a football match are reflecting or everyone there simultaneously.

However some times there is a "concordance" that allows for a relationship to begin and continue.

Regards free will, there are many arguements to suggest that it is a "sense of" and not a physical reality.
Maybe I should ask : How does one achieve Free will?
 
Votorx said:
You're haven't made any argument contradicting what i just said. You're only repeating yourself.
Click to expand...

Where else can our conversation go? It fell down to
"I believe I have free will"
"Maybe you only think you have free will but are in fact have every action controlled by God (or whoever)"

I gave my reasons for why I thought I had free will, but you never countered them. That is, no accountability, plus the fact that I reflect upon my actions and don't feel forced. There is no way I can prove that there isn't an entity forcing me to think I'm in control when I'm not (that I know of), and that ends that topic there. I'd basically have to bring God down and have him tell you that he is not in fact controlling my actions. I don't think God makes house calls so I'm stuck.

And as for the other one

"I believe we are givers of emotions as well as recievers"
"Ya well, what if we are just recivers?"

How can I respond to that? To refute you, I'd have to show somehow that I can ignore an emotion tossed at me or at least commit an action contrary to what I should commit if I was to reflect that emotion, and there's no way I can do that as there are tons of minute factors, and I can't list or even begin to account for each one. There'd have to be some kind of super-controlled labratory experiment, because otherwise all you'd have to say is, "Well gathering the environment and other factors it's only natural that your response to cheerfulness was to ignore it".

And you never answered my question, if we are just reflects of emotion, where are the sources of this emotion. God? Emotion isn't just an energy without a source. Which I reasked because you didn't answer it either time.

I don't know enough philosphy/science to prove that I control my actions and generate emotion, all I can tell you is that I reflect upon my actions and it feels as if I am making conscious decisions to show emotions and do actions. If there is some other way to go about defending my side, I don't know what it is.
 
There is a thread discussing free will currently happening and I think that the word "influence" has made a start on the issue.

New statement
" We are empathically influenced in our decision making and choicesand as to how we feel including our emotional state and action thereto"
Now that reads much better I think.

What do you think?
 
If you mean that we are influened by the environment around us, then I definately agree with you. That pretty much goes without saying. All you need to do to prove that is take a little kid to a martial arts movie and observe his behavior after the movie:p

The only thing I was arguing was that free will was eliminated if we merely took in and reflected but didn't generate any authentic emotions our selfs, which eliminates free will. Of course, if you don't believe in free will that's not a problem, but enough of that.
 
yes I see your point.

Just to add,

One could suggest that our DNA also influences our responses to our environment and interactions etc.

But can we say that we are free of our DNA? ( I think not)

WE all have an inherent personality too. This of course is very significant in how we reflect the influences placed upon us.

So I agree, My start to this thread is here by amended. To state not " just about everything" to .....hmmmmmm........"nearly everything"....ha :D
 
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