Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
Empathy: from water to wine
14
Jan
After clarified pathological situations, where empathy is just an
instrumentation or a disguise for actions that do not contemplate the Suffering of the Other, we can affirm situations in which it is really effective and can change the situation practically as a miracle, not only in the extraordinary sense but also with high probability.
We have already said that outside the ideological, cultural and social constraints, human nature destined to live in a collective situation tends to empathize for a good social life, it is enough to observe children when they are not yet contaminated by aggressive or toxic environments, to use a very current term.
Also social situations: work environments, neighbourhoods, small communities there is always a tendency where empathy reigns (or Love in a sense that is now forgotten) the greater tendency is that phronesis (in the sense that today they call emotional intelligence) and empathy, and this is not new, just an update is needed.
Many environments can change from water to wine if they are fully enriched and purified by empathy, there is always a greater tendency towards solidarity and tolerance than conflict and personal or group selfishness, in environments that are not enriched by a spirituality. it also weakens and tends not to prosper, because there is social pressure from outside where the environment is one of conflict and polarization.
Pandemic suffering was a great opportunity to recognize the Suffering of others, the pain of the Other, or just the face of the Other and its inclinations and concepts, what can be observed contextually is that conflicts increased and the opportunity was not properly seized, but not invalidity of joint efforts in regions and situations.
There are examples of these efforts in many places, right now the flooding situation in Bahia is a new opportunity in which many communities have joined the scourge of the region, donations and aid have come from various places in Brazil, although the central authorities have been somewhat negligent.
These are choices that we make of actions, habits and that become a “social character” if we change from water to wine, it is possible, as in that biblical passage where the wine was missing at the party, and Jesus being present receives the mother’s request to to intervene and his first public miracle happens only to give wine and improve the joy of that party, he orders three vats of 100 liters each to be filled with wine and then asks them to take it to the master of the party to taste (Jn 2,7), and he says the best wine was left for last.
So it is not the end we are living, but the beginning of a new reality, even if empathy has not arrived after so much suffering, it will come and a new clearing will open, like that of the paralytic’s passage through the ceiling that reaches Jesus to heal him. Rather, He heals him of his sins (Mk 1:5) so that he may have a more “empathetic” soul.
Empathy and spirituality
13
Jan
We did not point out in the previous post that phronesis is not
a moral virtue, but an intellectual virtue in Aristotle’s theory, so empathy can be according to the feeling of the phronesis, a better component according to the feeling of the phronesis, the best example to explain this is that of akrasia, or the feeling and phronosis of a psychopath.
Although akrasia can be projected literally because it “has no command over itself”, it is described in Plato’s speech in Protagoras, in fact it is a situation of psychopathy where he is aware of a certain actions, but does not have exactly the same a normal person’s feeling towards someone.
Something that is wrong in this counter-argument to explain phronesis is that the desire to alleviate the pain of the other in the face of suffering must be somehow protected, however it does not prevent the psychopath from cultivating some feeling for the other person’s situation and makes of attitudes in the sense of their habits and that are not defined in terms of such we have already said that this comes from thoughts become actions), if we include people who have knowledge or mercy for the suffering of others, then it can be explained.
So it is, therefore, the moral or ethical attitude, although it is, but some attitude of spiritual virtue, that is, the practice of resistance is also only in an action that is not oriented towards a. willingness to act in a moral way that can provide the means to discern about suffering along with Empathy, so one has to expand on that of moral attitudes by Aristotle.
To people who cannot be basic, but can also be able to offer in basic moral virtues, and people who can be basic, but can also be complementary, but can offer a moral virtue, many people who are basic, but who can complement the lack of a virtue. attitude your action, and this is impossible without some exercise in complete to become a habit to feel the Suffering of Others, this exercise that becomes a habit is called here Spirituality.
The phronesis cannot be exercised without basic moral virtues and thus cannot be initiated without empathy, it can be admitted that a psychopath even has empathy, many are charismatic and can influence many people, but he will lack a basic moral virtue that complements your action, and this is impossible without some an exercise to become a habit the full empathic attitude of feeling the suffering of others, this exercise that becomes a habit is called here Spirituality.
While it is not a habit, it can be an exercise in asceticism, a simulation or simply a disguise that at some point will be unveiled.
It is good to point out that there can be asceticism (elevation of the spirit partially) without true spirituality, I call it using Peter Sloterdijk’s term of “despiritualized asceticism”, that is, without a deep root that leads to the broad knowledge of what pain is. of the Other, if we want to give a name to an empathetic phronesis.
Spirituality is, therefore, an exercise that leads to an asceticism, but what is asceticism does not depend only on the belief of each one, but what during life becomes habit and character, those who do not have it can practice it for a long time. a few days, or even a few years, but without deep root it will soon leave it, like losing weight, dieting, diets and other attempts at habits that are not always maintained, to make them life they must integrate our character, our personality.
Empathy and social interaction
12
Jan
Although in some areas such as administration and health there
are already works on empathy as an improvement in social relationships, it is far from clear that it is not just an attitude of sympathy, emotional contagion or a caring relationship (Pedersen, 2010), it is not, therefore, a “tactic” of building relationships.
We have already outlined the reasoning that goes from thought to character (Meryl Streep’s phrase in the movie “The Iron Lady”) and must therefore be an exercise in ethical character.
The concept of phronesis (phronesis) translated as “practical wisdom” or “prudence” is developed in Aristotle, in book V of “Ethics to Nicomache”, is this understanding of the empathic and wise being in Aristotle correct? And if so, does being wise in practical matters mean better understanding the phenomenon of empathy?
Along with phronesis in the Nicomachean Ethics are other virtues such as areté (the excellence or supreme virtue) and Aristotle will associate it with five different forms when it comes to human activities, we could say social: the episteme (organized scientific knowledge), the techne (technical knowledge), phronesis (practical wisdom) and sophia (philosophical knowledge) and nous (intellectual “flanks”), of course all these concepts must be contextualized in the contemporary world.
Practical wisdom as Aristotle characterizes it is a kind of knowledge of how to act in practical situations (remember words become actions and actions become habits and define character), but he also speaks of technical expertise, in case that the objective of the activity must have some knowledge beforehand to carry it out, the idea that intuition or inspiration (nous) without technical knowledge is enough is useless.
Empathy is thus a type of discernment, a way of seeing what is happening in the world around us with other human beings, in this sense it is necessary to have wisdom (sophia) and to pay attention to different interpreters who are in a deeper way thematizing itself, maybe the word philosophy is worn out, so just sophia.
Contemporary philosophy Martha Nussbaum has shown how the Aristotelian notion of wisdom rests on understanding emotions as containing knowledge about the world that we share with other people, and phronesis is not devoid of feeling, on the contrary it helps the “sage” to understand and judge the person in a given situation.
Because of the ethical context, we are led to place empathy in the context of Aristotelian moral philosophy, which is a mistake, as phronesis is more appropriate, however, another mistake can happen to consider only as an “intellectual” virtue and disregard subjective aspects (including spiritual ones) that empathy should be placed.
Empathy is then a component of “feeling” related to phronesis, although it is a fact that some philosophers deny that empathy is essentially a feeling (Coplan, Goldie, 2011), we recall again that thoughts become words, these actions and then habits and when inserted in the character are already part of the “feelings”.
We resolved this dispute, it is not that simple, it is true, understanding that while they are not habits they need exercise and then inserted into the character, they are feelings or subjectivities (the subject’s own), but it is clear that it is not a natural attitude, although empathy In other words, “training” is needed.
Thus we detect in Aristotle a gap between practical wisdom and sophia, we would say a healthy spirituality or a capacity for interiorization.
References:
Coplan, A., and P. Goldie. 2011. Introduction. In Empathy: Philosophical and psychological perspectives, ed. A. Coplan, and P. Goldie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pedersen, R. 2010. Empathy in medicine: A philosophical hermeneutic reflection. Oslo: University of Oslo, Faculty of Medicine.
Empathy and phronesis
11
Jan
Frônesis (phrónesis, from ancient Greek: φρόνησις), in Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics, book IV, is distinguished from both theory and practice because it is a virtue of the wisdom of practical thinking, however a modern adaptation of Hans -Georg Gadamer is situated between logos and ethos, this relationship can thus bring “theoretical” love closer to an empathic practical action.
Thus, phronesis is inserted in human actions as phenomena through a hermeneutic examination of opinions, not only to reveal the immutable principles of the causes of this action, but above all to understand that from the mere opinion (the doxa) of the Other, it is possible to help it through empathy to reach knowledge (episteme).
It works as a true action of attraction that leads the Other to reflect. within the hermeneutic circle, it is a matter of allowing a reading of the Other’s preconceptions and paying attention to one’s own, so the actions that result from it can be more empathic, explaining in a phrectic (practical) way: reading what the Other actually wants and think.
This knowledge leads to a new episteme (theoretical conception of new horizons) in which it is possible to think of a joint or at least convergent action, as we have said before, empathy is an originally natural relationship, while disempathy (it is different from the antipathy that is opposed to sympathy) is the rejection of the Other, rather something that has become naturalized, due to hermetic ideologies and preconceptions that are impossible to reread.
The real law of attraction is empathy, since it can reinforce positive, collaborative and socially collective actions, while simple opposition leads to the repulsion of the Other and the creation of non-converging poles of opinion (doxa) and knowledge (episteme). and non-humans, it is not about simple logic, but onto-logic, the logic of Being.
Because this has become so widespread and widespread is simple, a strong non-humanist system of thought developed with the aim of power and enrichment, not only colonizing and xenophobic, but above all non-ontological, unbecoming of being.
The idea of simple rejection may seem natural, however it can lead to another system of domination polarized and structurally authoritarian and thus non-empathetic and non-frenetic, again simple theories that in practice prove to be disastrous.
Pandemic chaos and structural denialism
10
Jan
The restriction measures should have continued, but what is
observed is a release of agglomerations and the absence of clear protocols, worldwide there is an increase in chaos, approaching 3 million daily, in the United Kingdom there is an explosion of cases ( see graphic), studies from France have revealed 46 variants, omicron is still predominant, but there is a risk of new mutations if the pandemic is not contained and the only weapon available is vaccination, however, strict sanitary measures should have already been taken, little by little flights, restaurants and agglomerations are banned again, but without the necessary force of public authorities.
It is no different in Brazil, where more than 56 thousand hospitalizations were reached in the city of São Paulo alone, but the public discourse is that they are just people who have not taken the vaccine or that the cases are not that serious, but the WHO itself warns for the seriousness of omicron, the first immediate effect being to put the health system in collapse, in São Paulo ABLOS (Brazilian Association of Satellite Storers) will ask shopping malls to reduce their opening hours due to lack of employees due to covid.
A study by the University of Washington indicates that Brazil could reach one million daily cases, in the short term, by the end of January, the H3N2 influenza is advancing, however, most cases are still covid 19 with the variant omicron. China stockpiles food is not stated that it is just for the omicron issue or there is something else.
Indigenous leader Ailton Krenak, from the people of the devastated region of the Doce River, said in an interview on TVT’s Bom para Todos program that talking about a new normal is very close to denial, what needs to be changed and does not mean that we think the state is good. previous of carelessness about life and nature, it is nature itself that drives us to a change of habits, to a new way of living, and if we do not learn quickly, we will be stuck with new pandemics and cyclical crises.
That’s how it is, there is no way to change, says the conformist discourse, or worse, the one who wants to devastate lives to return to a normality that is still impossible not only due to the pandemic, but now also due to a suffered social reality and with blackouts and restructuring difficulties, such as Indian leader Krenak alerts there is no new normal, reality must be dealt with, however harsh it may be.
That’s how it is, there is no way to change, says the conformist discourse, or worse, the one who wants to devastate lives to return to a normality that is still impossible not only due to the pandemic, but now also due to a suffered social reality and with blackouts and restructuring difficulties, such as Krenak alerts there is no new normal, reality must be dealt with, however harsh it may be.
Even with the absence of clear data, since the end of December the Ministry of Health has been experiencing a data blackout, caused by hackers, but it has not been able to restructure itself, testing and control in collective activities has also been smoothed, just go to any social event , to restaurants or churches, there is no longer temperature measurement and the necessary distance observations, this is what we call here structural negationism.
Some measure is expected, but from the top down, it seems an intentional policy, there is a lack of control in actions and a relativization of the pandemic severity.
Empathy and the Truth
07
Jan
The construction of the concept of truth can roughly be divided
into three stages as having an elaboration or a narrative, I exclude the period of natural evolution of man because I consider the beginning of oral language elaborated by oracles/prophets/masters an important milestone, rather what existed was the natural man and his “search”, the three stages are: mythical, mixed orality (rhetoric and written) and written language based on Gutenberg’s press.
We are in a fourth stage that is called post-truth, therefore not its overcoming, but its crisis, the Enlightenment combined experience and Cartesian logic (Kantian is just the one that shows the limits of pure reason) and now we understand, it is one of the possibilities only philosophical phenomenology, the last step after Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer.
The hermeneutic circle presupposes what we argue in this week’s posts, a relationship with the Other, it proposes that there are always prejudices, that is, there are truths that may even have conventions, and recognize them even if they are different, being possible after these views a fusion of horizons, it is important and not secondary that Gadamer and Heidegger presuppose the existence of the text, that is, a written language which is a reference for the next step, which is listening to the Text, in orality however, it would be listening to the Other.
What we call post-truth then is the simple closure in an egoic truth, the transcendental ego, as developed in topic V of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, and which we summarized in the previous post, so it is impossible to merge horizons, logic prevails dualist and/or the idea of experience to establish a fact.
Ancient philosophy also had these embryonic ideas, Socrates affirmed (according to Plato): “The truth is not with men, but among men” and Aristotle affirmed that the truth is elaborated in the relation of the thing with its causes: Material cause: de what is the thing done? for example a built house. Efficient cause: what did the thing? Building with materials. Formal cause: what gives it form? The house itself. Final cause: what gave it shape? or the initial intention of the builder or architect
The difference between the phenomenological principle of addressing the “thing” and Aristotle is that its logic is dual: there is only A or no A, and from A to B it is necessary to go through intermediate C, in the fusion of origin a T is possible (The included third theory and quantum physics also admit this) that it is not A and not A, and one can go directly from A to B.
The Christian worldview establishes as truth the existence of a supernatural reality, above the dogmas and mysteries of science (they are themselves discovered are provisional truths) and there is an ontological criterion for the truth, a person, who is the earthly God its manifestation (epiphany), the man-God: Jesus.
John the Baptist, the last and greatest of the prophets, there are no prophets today unless a direct revelation from God Himself (thus all the prophets today are false) and John the Baptist when questioned in his time affirmed (Lk 3:16): “Hence, John declared to everyone: “I am baptizing you with water, but he who is stronger than I will come. I am not worthy of untying the strap of your sandals. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire” ” and this is the truth of the Christian worldview.
Empathy seen by philosophy
06
Jan
A disciple of Edmund Husserl, it was Edith Stein who worked more 
deeply on the theme of empathy, however the master dealt with the theme in his famous Paris Conferences or Cartesian Meditations in which the Cartesian method is reviewed, it can be said that part of this review is the discovery of empathy, or the relationship with the Other.
As in every philosophy there must be a fundamental question to be investigated and in this case it is the question: “how can I clarify this, if the principle that everything that is for me only in intentional life can acquire meaning and intentional confirmation remains untouchable? ”, it is in the solution of this question that the theme empathy appears, put in this way:
“We lack here an authentic phenomenological explanation of the transcendental operativeness of intropathy and, to this end, as it is in question, of putting-out-of-the-value abstractly of others and of all the strata of meaning of my surrounding world that grow for me from the validity of the experience of others” (HUSSERL, 2013, p. 33).
Intentionality is a fundamental category of the phenomenological method, it is very broad as it is a characteristic of consciousness, it means the aspect of being aware of something.
The term intropathy is a first incursion outside the ego, it means to introject a sense or feeling that the other might like, in this sense it breaks with the sense of the Cartesian transcendental ego, validating the experience of the other, as said by Husserl:
“Precisely for this reason it separates itself in the realm of the transcendental ego, that is, in its realm of consciousness, together with its specifically proved ego-being, my concrete peculiarity, as the one from which, from the motivations of my ego, I grasp my analogue in intropathy” (Husserl, 2013, p. 34).
Thus, it can be said that this term is still among the intersubjective experiences, that is, the appreciation of the subjective experiences and relationships of subjects in social or community life, but empathy is a step further, in this sense it is important to understand the phenomenological epoché, that puts our senses, our knowledge “in parentheses”:
“If I, the meditating self, see myself reduced by epoché to my absolute ego and to what is constituted there, then I have not become solus ipse, and this whole philosophy of self-reflection will not be like that a pure solipsism, albeit phenomenological -transcendental?” (Husserl, 2013, p. 34) so it is not a Cartesian solipsism, but a reflection with intentionality.
How does this become clear, then, does it remain “unapprehensible that everything that is for me can only obtain meaning and proof in my intentional life?” (Husserl, 2013, p. 35) here the philosopher clarifies that a phenomenological understanding of empathy is necessary and a penetration into the experience of the Other, outside its egoic scope.
Thus, this overcoming of transcendental subjectivity extended in intersubjectivity is only “co-experienced in myself, therefore indicted, in a secondary sense, in the way of a peculiar perception of similarity, proving itself there in a consensual way” (Husserl, 2013, idem) and it is curious that there Husserl speaks of “mirroring the alter ego” (idem) long before the discovery of the mirror neuron (see previous post).
Stein’s connection with Husserl in the phenomenological tradition is enormous, having even been his assistant, when presenting her thesis with the theme: “The problem of Empathy” suggests that this was a gap in the phenomenological approach, wrote Stein:
“In his course on nature and spirit, Husserl had spoken that an external objective world could only be experienced intersubjectively, that is, by a plurality of knowing individuals, who are situated in a position of cognitive interchange. … this peculiar experience, Husserl, following the works of Theodor Lipps, called “empathy” (Einfühlung); however, I had not specified what it consisted of” (STEIN, 2017, p. 360, free translation).
Stein’s work is enormous and still very little known.
STEIN, E. (2017) Zum Problem der Einfühlung. Dissertation zur Erlanugng der Doktorowürde. Breslau: Bruchdruckercides Waisenhaauses.
HUSSERL, E. (2013) Meditações Cartesianas e Conferências de Paris. Ed. por Stephan Strasser, trans. Pedro M. S. Alve. Brazil, Rio de Janeiro: Forense.
Disempathy or untraining
05
Jan
Of course the term does not exist (disempathy), I created it to say
that it is neither antipathy nor disaffection, it is a feeling as great as the empathy that dominates the thoughts, culture and habits of a given time, as opposed to empathy, to develop the theme I take a phrase by Margareth Thatcher quoted in the film The Iron Lady (directed by Phyllida Lloyd, 2011).
In the film Margareth Thatcher, played by Meryl Streep (Oscar deserved for best actress) says: “Watch out for your thoughts they become words. Beware that they can become actions, as they become habits. Beware of habits because they become your character”, this to understand how it is possible to detrain neurons so that they are not empathetic and become obnoxious and destructive, unfortunately we are training the opposite side to our natural empathic side.
As we said in the previous post, it is possible to train empathy, it is possible to untrain it (another neologism, something natural that is corrupted by a habit opposite to the instinctive) and induce a feeling of repulsion and hatred, even if disguised or veiled and even disguised in a form of “love” that corrects the other, we must correct everything that is not agape or empathy, but rather, the others are habits or culture.
Let’s follow the path proposed by Thatcher according to the film that intends to be a biography (no, that was the main criticism), so things start with thinking, something must already be corrected right away in contemporary theories and ideologies that say that everything would begin by the “middle”, remember the discourse of contractualists, Thomas Hobbes do Leviathan (1651) indicates that man is wolf the man, that is, he is anti-empathic, whereas John Locke (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690) defends that the individual must renounce the state of nature and make a contract (which the State regulates) and thus defends its freedom, his famous phrase: “where there is no law, there is no freedom” father of liberalism and in a way of empiricism (I think that it was born embryonic before with the vision of Francis Bacon).
Only Rousseau partly abandoned these concepts creating the “good savage”, the man is good society corrupts him, it is a principle of untraining, but he was also in favor of the contract, so it seems that handing freedom into the hands of the State is a condition “Natural”.
Thus, not only due to contractualism, but throughout the entire historical course, our thinking is linked to its contemporary roots and it is clear to what is within each culture, religion or ideological group, only through reading it is possible to detach from current thinking, and exercise to internalize takes the second step: the words.
Words like that are discourses or, as it is currently said, narratives, which are largely permeated in contemporary culture, only those who read are not linked to the flavor of this culture in its current polarization, remember that the first mental act is imitation (a neuroscience speaks of the mirror neuron), and it can be untrained, that is, it can either be taken back to its natural course of empathy or the opposite of what I have called disempathy.
It is from them that we unleash our actions, much has been said about reflection or active vitta as Hannah Arendt called it, and it was taken up by Byung Chull Han in his book The Society of Burnout, there he argues that we must also have an interior life, reflexive and so we can return to our initial course of empathy (my conclusion).
Finally, actions become habits, a good part of linguistics and semiotics starts the analysis from there, yes it is a fact that it also speaks of secondness (something that exists) and thirdness (what is), Pierce’s categories, but the theme is far and requires a greater depth which I humbly say I do not possess.
We come from habit to character, from the etymology of the word derives from the Greek “charaktér, éros”, or from the Latin “character, eris”, meaning “engraved”, therefore it is what is being carved, and it is possible to become a lack of empathy, that is, a break with the original empathic character, in the current discourse the absence of Subjectivity (proper to the subject), individualism (not looking at the Other) and a series of subcategories that are breaks with empathy.
Empathy: or what it really is
04
Jan
In my humble opinion, because I haven’t seen any of the readings
I’ve done to assert this, the word empathy is on the rise because the word Love, in its broad meaning: eros (in the sense Byung Chul Han uses in “The Agony of Eros”), filia (in the sense of the decay of family relationships and friendships) and mainly in the sense of agape, since all the instrumentalization made by modern romantic love, read Balzac’s human comedy, turned into connections, proselytizing or of pure interest.
Empathy, in a didactic simplification, is the ability to understand the Other as it seems, so it is inseparable from the concept of otherness in the most side of the word.
Empathy escaped these traps, from psychology to philosophy, Husserl studied it and Edith Stein went deeper into neuroscience past using it, in her article in The Atlantic Magazine entitled “A Short History of Empathy”, Susan Lanzoni claims that the word it has existed (in the current sense of course, it has Greek origins) for only a century.
A psychology with empathy I define as having 3 types: a cognitive is an intuitive corn refers to understanding how the other is and feels, an emotional and a compassionate one, it goes without saying that the emotional is also explored as emotional intelligence , the most difficult compassion to intuit is the one that goes beyond understanding and feeling the sensations of the other person, starting to mobilize to help them, but be careful, the help also has to be empathetic, that is, the one that really or other accurate and not any guesswork.
Empathic behavior is known to be natural not only in humans, but in many mammals and some birds as well, and this is actually closer to natural.
Closer because there is a totally induced natural, or consumption, different types of philosophies, theory or even religions that have little or nothing to human nature, and by extension, like nature as a whole, we are a cosmic being, broader than that we think, even though we are a spark in such a vast and mysterious universe.
Every contemporary belief, that seeing the ideas of modernity is that empathy is a new utopia, the realities that come from modern thought have induced the idea that an authoritarian state is needed, even those who deny it dream of it and say it will be “from another like”, essentially the imposition of a model of thought is an affirmation of the ego, it is the inexistence of empathy, it is the antipathy set in motion, just see the polarization this concept becomes clear.
Neuroscience and science itself show that since birth, the maternal and paternal relationship with the baby has an empathic relationship, to live in society an empathetic relationship is needed, an empathic relationship is needed to defend ourselves from the pandemic, without it there is a denial “structural”, that is, the other can die and I cannot.
The theory of neuroscience simulation, through the discovery of mirror neurons (Rizzolatti and Graighero, 2004), a type of neuron that fires when an animal acts when another animal observes and performs the same observed action, so this neuron “mirrors” the behavior of the other, as if the observer himself was acting, this is also observed in some primates and birds, I remember when smoking was allowed in the classroom when, when lighting a cigarette, several students also lit.
This theory has not only advanced neuroscience but has helped the study of some natural phenomena and some types of autism (Distein, Behrmann, 2008).
In addition to being innate, empathy can be trained, this by the most fantastic feature of our brain, which is its plasticity, that is why we are subject to auto-suggestion but also to alter-suggestion, so it could revolutionize the entire theory of self-help for a alter-help in a society focused on empathy, it took several centuries of training (I would say detraining) so that hatred, revenge and the idea that only war can solve (in part) our empathic capacity, since love -agape is in discredit whether it is for excessive labeling without content, or for the formulation of words without corresponding action.
Rizzolatti, Giacomo; Craighero, Laila (2004). “The mirror-neuron system” (PDF). Annual Review of Neuroscience. 27 (1): 169–192.O comportamento empático é conhecido como natural não somente nos seres humanos, mas em outros mamíferos e em algumas aves também.
Dinstein I, Thomas C, Behrmann M, Heeger DJ (2008). “A mirror up to nature”. Curr Biol. 18 (1): R13–8.
The innocents and Epistasis
28
Dec
Much was said in an ironic tone about possible genetic variations
due to the pandemic, the phenomenon exists, although it rarely occurs when there is an interaction of genes to influence some characteristic of the species, the classic case was studied by Bateson and Punnett, who studied a type of crest that appears in chickens, and is determined by two independent genes (which is equivalent to two pairs of alleles), of course this is not the case with vaccines, just to clarify the scientific question.
The innocence lies in understanding the virus mutation as capable of inducing or influencing a human genetic mutation, of course our immune system is affected, as studies try to correlate HIV with the omicron variant, but this does not mean any human genetic mutation so far.
However, epistasis has been important to study the omicron variant, in this case the virus and not the vaccine, according to a BBC News report, Professor Ed Feill, professor of microbial evolution at the University of Bath, England: “If the variant has more mutations, this does not mean that it is more dangerous, more transmissible or more capable of evading the effect of vaccines”, and many premature conclusions about this variant do not have a solid scientific basis.
The confusion is that the virus undergoes variations, but it is unfounded to imagine that these mutations affect the human genetic code, says the professor: “as a virus evolves, it can accumulate a group of mutations that, in turn, can create a variant”, “… and to detect the new variants: “ scientists track the genomic sequence of the virus”, and in this case, epistasis studies are essential to detect variants.
American evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom, in a recent article in The New York Times, called attention to the alpha variant that has a mutation called N501Y, which is associated with the capacity for infection.
It is important to understand that the omicron variant is not completely deciphered, precisely because of its number of mutations in its epistasis, which is more difficult to detect and understand: “this opens up more evolutionary space for this”, said Feil in the article, and so the research has to observe combinations that have not been seen before.
Neither innocence to claim that there is some human genetic mutation, nor innocence to claim that the omicron variable is controlled because it offers “less danger”.
WHO has a classification of variants into “concern” and “interest” as per the table above.
