Mirror Neurons, Empathy and Quantum Physics
There was a great article in yesterday's NY Times about the discovery of what are called "mirror neurons". Basically, these are very specialized cells that fire off WHEN YOU WATCH SOMEONE DO SOMETHING. And in doing so, they evoke the same experience in you, the same feeling and reaction in you. I read it and thought about how when men see a man hit in the crotch, we universally all flinch and go "owch!" together.
This is thought to be a basis for empathy, the effectiveness of visioning, and implicit learning.
One of the examples used in the article is that when a monkey watched a person eating a peanut, the same neurons he would use WHEN EATING A PEANUT himself fired.
It has pretty startling impact when you really dig into it, about the impacts we have on each other. And, while I am not a quantum physics expert, it reminded me of the concept of "entanglement" where two particles become somehow related, and changing one changes the other, even though they are great distances apart, and there are no visible means of "communication".
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm..........
posted by pe @ 12:04 PM
2 Comments:
Hey--Did you read Malcom Gladwell's Blink? While not as fascinationg as his previous book, The Tipping Point," still a pretty interesting read.
jfk
I've been thinking something along the same lines. There a quantum mechanical phenomena called the exchange interaction.
When two identical particles are close together, It's as if the particle is itself and the other particle at the same time.
kinda of like me saying "I'm me, but I'm also you."
This sounds similar to empathy.
And just like empathy bonds people together, this exchange interaction is partly responsible for covalent bonding of atoms.
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