By lmfao,
"The Essential Difference"- Simon Cohen
Chapter 1 - "The Male and Female Brain" Hypothesis is that the average female brain is hard-wired for empathy, the average male brain is hardwired for systemising.
Empathising
"Empathising is the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and respond to them with an appropriate emotion…Empathising occurs when we feel an appropriate emotional reaction, an emotion triggered by the other person's emotions, and it is done in order to understand another person, to predict their behaviour, and to connect or resonate with them emotionally"
You see in Jane in pain, you feel concern, wince, and feel a desire to run across and help alleviate her pain. Or maybe you recognise Jane is in pain but "this left you cold, or detached, or happy, or preoccupied"
"In this book, I will consider the evidence that, on average, females spontaneously empathise to a greater degree than do males"
The sort of shit where you're a good listener to your friends problems in a way which makes them feel supported, cared for and rapidly understood is a skill women are good at
_____
Now, what's interesting about this is the word "appropriate" above. The idea of there being an appropriate response, a "correct response" I suppose.
In these descriptions, there is the interpretation that it involves being reactive/causal in your reactions. X thing in someone else ----> Y thing in you.
What connection to another person means I don't know. Connecting to someone else's emotions. The analogy of Jane is a good basic example of how any human will see or understand the concept of empathy.
Solipsism never leaves me. What might be a complicating factor is considering the "autism" factor and personality factor. If my preferences are the result of relative, and fickle, biologies and psychologies, from where can I grasp truth or clarity?
____
Systemising
"Is it possible to systemise a person? Systemising works very well if you're trying to understand a system within a person such as their ovaries." (insert statistics about rates of miscarriage among different groups of women)
"Systemising can also work to a useful degree if you are trying to understand a human group as a system, such as the patterns of traffic accidents on a particular motorway or patterns of voting behaviours; hence the terms traffic system or electoral system."
"These systems, like any other can be lawful, finite, and deterministic"
"Analysis, exploration and creation of systems" " If-then structures "
Author then elaborates how systemising almost gets you nowhere in most day to day social interaction. Just the form, formulation and contextualisation doesn't match and doesn't work, obviously. Emotions, moment-by-moment changes in a person, etc.
"While the natural way to predict the nature of events and objects is to systemise, the natural way to understand a person is to empathise"
__
I find systemising and math more boring nowadays. Rather the category of people under this class of systemising is broad and nuanced. E.g. the philosophers who try to transcend logic and systemising.
I'm dyslexic brained, extreme detail and technical manuals not being my cup of tea. (As proof of that, I had to edit this document since I wrote "systematising" everywhere instead "systemising" and idk the fucking difference). I need variety and novelty.
Brain Types, Intelligences and Different Skills. Modelling
What gets constructed is the framing/idea of "E" and "S" being opposing/opposite things vying for your exclusive participation. In all scales, moving closer to one side is moving further away from the other side. Which basically summarises so much dualistic formulation
E and S simultaneously skill/intelligence and preference. "SQ" and "EQ" come up later in book.
The idea was thrown out there of women having better language ability and men having better spatial ability. Definitely true in my case, although I know enough to know that I'm no math or spatial genius at all. But the contrast between my english grades and mathematics grades is stark. Was there a seed of talent in math? Sure. But it was mostly cultivation and practice.
Different cases; S>E, E>S, E=S, S>>E (hypo-developed E in contrast to hyper developed S ), E>>S (vice-versa)
One must consider biology, culture and society in unison. Its not exclusively one. Dynamic investigations where both "opposite formulations" are used as appropriate in the intelligence of awareness.
_____
I'm not sure how useful this theory will be to me, but this is getting me back into the flow of reading and being a bit more productive with my time.
This is rationalist/scientific explanation of concepts such as empathy, math/systems. I will keep reading, but it’s a bit like doing a boring slow activity, like washing dishes, even if I skim read and type a bit.
I'm almost certain I'll qualify as S>>E despite these all being very normie superficial formulations which are common sense.
Chapter 2 of the book was looking at the lives of two siblings as described by their parents. The boy being S>>E and the girl being the opposite.
Next chapter 3 is the topic of empathy, and that has enough juice to motivate me. This book is easy to read and short enough.
Chapter 1 - "The Male and Female Brain" Hypothesis is that the average female brain is hard-wired for empathy, the average male brain is hardwired for systemising.
Empathising
"Empathising is the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and respond to them with an appropriate emotion…Empathising occurs when we feel an appropriate emotional reaction, an emotion triggered by the other person's emotions, and it is done in order to understand another person, to predict their behaviour, and to connect or resonate with them emotionally"
You see in Jane in pain, you feel concern, wince, and feel a desire to run across and help alleviate her pain. Or maybe you recognise Jane is in pain but "this left you cold, or detached, or happy, or preoccupied"
"In this book, I will consider the evidence that, on average, females spontaneously empathise to a greater degree than do males"
The sort of shit where you're a good listener to your friends problems in a way which makes them feel supported, cared for and rapidly understood is a skill women are good at
_____
Now, what's interesting about this is the word "appropriate" above. The idea of there being an appropriate response, a "correct response" I suppose.
In these descriptions, there is the interpretation that it involves being reactive/causal in your reactions. X thing in someone else ----> Y thing in you.
What connection to another person means I don't know. Connecting to someone else's emotions. The analogy of Jane is a good basic example of how any human will see or understand the concept of empathy.
Solipsism never leaves me. What might be a complicating factor is considering the "autism" factor and personality factor. If my preferences are the result of relative, and fickle, biologies and psychologies, from where can I grasp truth or clarity?
____
Systemising
"Is it possible to systemise a person? Systemising works very well if you're trying to understand a system within a person such as their ovaries." (insert statistics about rates of miscarriage among different groups of women)
"Systemising can also work to a useful degree if you are trying to understand a human group as a system, such as the patterns of traffic accidents on a particular motorway or patterns of voting behaviours; hence the terms traffic system or electoral system."
"These systems, like any other can be lawful, finite, and deterministic"
"Analysis, exploration and creation of systems" " If-then structures "
Author then elaborates how systemising almost gets you nowhere in most day to day social interaction. Just the form, formulation and contextualisation doesn't match and doesn't work, obviously. Emotions, moment-by-moment changes in a person, etc.
"While the natural way to predict the nature of events and objects is to systemise, the natural way to understand a person is to empathise"
__
I find systemising and math more boring nowadays. Rather the category of people under this class of systemising is broad and nuanced. E.g. the philosophers who try to transcend logic and systemising.
I'm dyslexic brained, extreme detail and technical manuals not being my cup of tea. (As proof of that, I had to edit this document since I wrote "systematising" everywhere instead "systemising" and idk the fucking difference). I need variety and novelty.
Brain Types, Intelligences and Different Skills. Modelling
What gets constructed is the framing/idea of "E" and "S" being opposing/opposite things vying for your exclusive participation. In all scales, moving closer to one side is moving further away from the other side. Which basically summarises so much dualistic formulation
E and S simultaneously skill/intelligence and preference. "SQ" and "EQ" come up later in book.
The idea was thrown out there of women having better language ability and men having better spatial ability. Definitely true in my case, although I know enough to know that I'm no math or spatial genius at all. But the contrast between my english grades and mathematics grades is stark. Was there a seed of talent in math? Sure. But it was mostly cultivation and practice.
Different cases; S>E, E>S, E=S, S>>E (hypo-developed E in contrast to hyper developed S ), E>>S (vice-versa)
One must consider biology, culture and society in unison. Its not exclusively one. Dynamic investigations where both "opposite formulations" are used as appropriate in the intelligence of awareness.
_____
I'm not sure how useful this theory will be to me, but this is getting me back into the flow of reading and being a bit more productive with my time.
This is rationalist/scientific explanation of concepts such as empathy, math/systems. I will keep reading, but it’s a bit like doing a boring slow activity, like washing dishes, even if I skim read and type a bit.
I'm almost certain I'll qualify as S>>E despite these all being very normie superficial formulations which are common sense.
Chapter 2 of the book was looking at the lives of two siblings as described by their parents. The boy being S>>E and the girl being the opposite.
Next chapter 3 is the topic of empathy, and that has enough juice to motivate me. This book is easy to read and short enough.