What is your familiarity with empathy?
Being able to feel the emotions another is experiencing. Have you experienced feeling empathy?
I believe so.
I think only from an imagination perspective, not sure if I have literally.
I do think it takes imagination, which is why some people are not good at it.
The brain and mind is not the unified thing it would seem to be at first glance. It isn’t a single system that somehow has multiple applications. It is many systems each shaped by it’s own domain of energy or information exchange. Some of the obvious examples of this truth show up in cases of exceptional human performance. While there are multi-talented individuals, these are rare and even in their case there is still something easily identified as their main strength. So for example, Michael Jordan. Certainly a proficient athlete generally speaking, but what happened when he got out of basketball?
He failed. Yes. Other examples would be in the field of acting. How many actors started out in one genre in acting only to find their strength in another? Would anyone have guessed that Johnny Depp would excel in comedic roles? Or Keanu Reeves in sci-fi?
I’ve noticed that male actors tend to get more funny as they age. Many do. Robin Williams didn’t. He would go on to excel in dramatic roles. Who would have thought he would make a convincing and even scary villain? But yes, some find comedy, some give up comedy, some find art, some give up art. We each of us have a unique array of cognitive and sub cognitive abilities.
Leslie Nielsen was a straight man in the 50s though everyone acted the same way back then. Indeed, things were more formulaic. Some came to their full potential only later in their career. Sean Connery would be an example. His early roles were kind of dry, even awkward.
Sean Connery plays Sean Connery in everything. He didn’t change genres though, he just matured into that charisma he always had.
Jim Carey turned out good in drama as well. Yes, Jim Carey does very well playing serious roles.
So yes, we both have an array of cognitive abilities which are conscious, and sub-cognitive abilities which are at best partially conscious and not fully under our control. They are described as making up our character.
An example of a sub-cognitive ability… My wife has absolutely no interest in leadership, never tries to consciously do it, would never volunteer. Yet because of her innate capacity for order, organization and inborn sense of coherent direction, though no one consciously makes the choice or consciously recognizes this about her, she winds up taking a leadership role in activities, even just social activities.
I myself have no such sub-cognitive leadership ability. Everybody can sense as far as choosing a group direction I am clueless, or organizing anything, not good.
One of the things they have discovered in this age of neuroscience is that the various systems in the brain compete with each other. So when you activate one system in your brain, other systems are either submerged or they remain in quasi-isolated systems. Like having a good think usually doesn’t impair your cardiac rhythm regulation, but getting really angry can impair judgment and has been proven to impair planning ability.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~