Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit


I have chilli pain, and to go with it some thoughts about seeing people from the outside and seeing myself from the inside – I was reading an article about reading emotions in other people (with thanks to twicezero) and it struck that I recognise more of that deficiency than I would like in myself:

“The idea is that the mirror neuron systems of [some] individuals are somehow impaired or deficient, and that the resulting “mind-blindness” prevents them from simulating the experiences of others. For [these] individuals, experience is more observed than lived, and the emotional undercurrents that govern so much of our human behavior are inaccessible. They guess the mental states of others through explicit theorizing, but the end result is a list — mechanical and impersonal — of actions, gestures and expressions void of motive, intent, or emotion”

To some extent at least I’ve learned to live with that, at least understanding that I don’t understand. But then I started wondering about what I’m projecting, what emotions are others reading in me? Are they whats actually on the inside? Or is it not possible for me to project unless I can read them too?

On a less introspective note I was pleasantly surprised to see my baby given such a prominent role in the Hitchhikers film – indeed a good film, far better than I had expected and some nice changes to the storyline too, I liked the characters even though they were very different from those I had in my mind when I read the book.


6 comments

  1. I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as all that. I know from my experience that sometimes I’m more receptive to the way people are feeling than others. Sometimes I’m just plain cold and couldn’t empathise with anyone. There are also some people that I find it impossible to “click” with on an emotional level, no matter what the situation.

    As to you, you don’t come across as being overly emotional but you’re not cold either. I have seen you express emotions, but I don’t think an emotional response is ever your first response to anything.

    • Too rational for that. The one emotion I’m really aware of (in myself) is anger, the rest are kind of there but distant.

    • Yeah, at least we’re mostly harmless in the big picture, keeping our emotions repressed inside not letting them out for fear of offending or embarrassing anyone…

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