Empathy: Awareness of Other Awarenesses

Empathy. The subjective experience of putting yourself in another’s shoes.

Not visualizing something happening to them, but imagining how they might feel. One could call that just as subjective an experience as thinking rationally, or feeling emotions.

Empathy isn’t really an emotion. It’s a way of thought. Emotions we’ve defined as physical feelings. Empathy doesn’t quite fit into that. Empathy can be deeper kindness towards other people, other animals, and our kin.

Really understanding intuitively that they are just another sentient being with free will in this world. To feel sorry for them when something horrible happens. To be able to put yourself in someone’s shoes and imagine how they are thinking. To get wrapped up in their joy, their anger. The way moods are contagious.

Empathy truly is simply being aware that other people are going through life too.

We base a good amount of our laws and societal morals on the idea of a deep understanding and respect towards others, their property, their sense of ownership, and their feelings.

“He has feelings too, you know!” is just another way to state that one should recognize and be aware that there are other beings with their own set of awarenesses regarding this universe.

As such, one can define empathy as a sense. A sense, which we previously defined as an awareness of some aspect of our universe. Not quite an emotion, and not quite a logical thought. Something else entirely.

Our senses list now looks like the following:

Sense	Awareness of...
Sight	Photons
Sound	Energy Waves
Touch	Nuclear Force
Taste	Chemical Structure
Smell	Chemical Structure
Emotions	Hormone Levels
Logic/Rationality	Mathematics
Empathy	Other Awarenesses

Rationality: Awareness of Mathematics

The next sense we’re going to cover in terms of consciousness is rationality. It can be defined as the process of thinking abstractly and logically. That’s an awareness of the mathematics present in the universe. Making logical jumps, and thinking through a problem.

This might seem far-fetched, but if you think closely, have you ever been frustrated when somebody is acting "irrationally" to you? Why people argue and need to be proven right. Because they understand intuitively that there is a logical answer (usually theirs, in their own minds). This awareness of logic, is really a deep awareness of the structure and mathematical beauty that seems to govern the universe, with predefined rules.

Of deeply understanding on an intuitive sense, that every time you throw a ball up, it’s going to come down. There are some consistent rules of the game at play as you go through life. You start making assumptions and predictions based on those consistent physics rules you see. You very quickly (within seconds of becoming aware of the world) enter the world and see intuitively that gravity follows a very specific path all the time (“water flows down”) and you start to very quickly pick up that the rules of the game at play to get specific needs met are in front of you and unchanging.

We get challenged by others, and we can think through a problem logically. That ability to see that there’s a logical way to view problems is simply a deep intuitive understanding that when we throw a ball up, it always comes back down.

It has allowed us to develop technology further than any other species and gotten us to the moon, because of our ability to think logically, and be aware of the mathematical (scientific) reasonings.

For an engineer, it’s using math to solve problems. For a street thug, it’s being able to learn the rules of the game to stay alive, and utilizing logic to that end. For political activists, it manifests as wanting to structure society fairly based on their perceived logic. Their ability to think through a problem and see, perhaps with severe dogma/bias or perhaps not, that there are desired rules for a society based on logic. For many, it manifests as frustration when things don't go as you expect. 

An awareness of the mathematics of the universe can be seen as a seventh "sense" (really a subjective intuitive experience). Rationality. Logic. A deep intuition that 1+1 = 2 which doesn't need to be explained to build the foundation for mathematics. And the capability of forming a thought or conclusion and then action from that logical awareness. 

Our senses list now looks like the following:

Sense	Awareness of...
Sight	Photons
Sound	Energy Waves
Touch	Nuclear Force
Taste	Chemical Structure
Smell	Chemical Structure
Emotions	Hormone Levels
Logic/Rationality	Mathematics