Power, that TRP theme..and empathy-- mirror neurons appear. Science sez

[alice wellintown]

And if you study the bumps on the heads of the powerful and powerless,
the size of the ears, the shape of the nose, the colors that flash
brightest on a PET when images of an Orange Clock are flashed on a
screen as Mozart's violin concertos are piped in....oh what a bunch of
psudo-science we promote these daze.

Consider the straw man in the argument. The shrink, so stupid she can
only explain the apparent lack of empathy with the glib, oh the
powerful are to busy to concern themselves with the welfare of their
fellows.

 How can a new study claim that power, or anything else, changes the
fundamental way the brain works when we've not even a strong theory on
how the brain works? Fundamentally works? What the hell is that
supposed to mean? That humans adapt behavior in response to the
behavior of others, and that those with more power adapt less, is not
new theory. Hell, Adam Smith wrote two books on this. One is a
classic, The Wealth of Nations. He was influenced, of course, by his
friend Hume.

Hume used the word sympathy but he often means what we now call empathy.

Of course Smith and Hume did not piut as much faith as we do in Modern
Science, Engineering and Technic. Smith famously argued that the
workers were more adept at invention and at assessing the the
conditions of their labor, how they engaged with others than the
engineers, be they mechanical or social. We have a new religion. It is
Science. We bow our heads and it blesses us with ignorance as makes
its slaves.

I wonder how the new Pope,a man with a bit of power, would fit into
this new discovery.

On 8/10/13, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Neuroscience study: "Power diminishes all varieties of empathy"
> http://www.npr.org/2013/08/10/210686255/a-sense-of-power-can-do-a-number-on-your-brain …