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What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

chopra.com

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Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#51

Post by mistermann »

s_dev wrote: post #49
qumpis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of the person, but the video you linked doesn't seem to do a good job of exposing charlatism at all, it's a rather strange meme of a moment taken out of context. Edit: this random post on reddit seems to question this person's techings (?) And imo do a better job at 'exposing' https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/d1ewq/why_deepak_c...

A short transcript from the video: Chopra says 'all beliefs are a cover up for insecurity' An academic asks him "Do you believe that"? This shows the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid. That's Deepak's career in a nutshell. Nothing he says stands up to the most basic scrutiny.

> This shows the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid.

Can you explain how this short excerpt "shows"[1] that it is a fact that "the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid"?

> That's Deepak's career in a nutshell. Nothing he says stands up to the most basic scrutiny.

I do not believe that you have actually reviewed all of Chopra's work. I think you are quite literally making things up, or hallucinating.

[1] What forces/processes are involved in this "showing"? Do you play any role?

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#53

Post by mcv »

hosh wrote: post #40
mcv wrote: post #32

I've come across several articles and discussions that suggests empathy is a bit of a trap. You may feel what someone else is feeling, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're helping them. I'm currently reading Rutget Bregman's Humankind: A Hopeful History (Dutch: De Meeste Mensen Deugen ) about how people in emergency situations or when society breaks down, tend to be far more altruistic than we usually tell o…

I am not sure I buy that (empathy leads to xenophobia), so I’d have to think about that some more. I learned this from a particular Buddhist teaching — what someone want is not necessarily the same as what someone needs. It takes wisdom to know what the deeper needs are. So the way I learned that empathy is a trap the same way sympathy and compassion is a trap. Someone unable able distinguish surface wants for deeper…

The issue is of course a lot more complex than I can summarise in a brief comment. It's a 500 page book (though well worth reading). But he describes a couple of experiments, including some with babies: show a baby two puppets, one who is mean and one who is nice, and they'll prefer the nice one. But show them two puppets, one who share the same taste in food but is mean, and another who is nice but doesn't share the same taste, and they'll prefer the mean one.

He includes observations that groups of terrorists of various kinds are often very close to each other, soldiers fight harder and more effectively against an enemy if they have a strong sense of camaraderie. Empathy makes us closer to some, but more distant from the rest.

The book quotes a professor Bloom who is against empathy for that reason. A colleague of his showed that when people are encouraged to empathise with one mortally ill patient, they're more likely to support preferential treatment for that one patient even if it comes at the cost of other patients who are just as ill and in need of treatment.

I wonder if the same is true with Trump supporters: they oppose his indictment because they empathise with him, but they want Hillary Clinton locked up because they don't empathise with her. They believe Trump understands them and cares about them, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. It's not that they're heartless people who have chosen evil, it's that they've been blinded by the limited focus of their empathy. But this is my own speculation, not Bregman's. And I certainly don't pretend to understand it.

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#54

Post by tekla »

I really really dislike this shit with empathy/sympathy/compassion and how its considered good.

It only works when your thought patterns are "normal". As soon as you stray from acceptable norms, this shit just makes it easy to judge you as weird and a freak.

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#55

Post by avgcorrection »

s_dev wrote: post #49
qumpis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of the person, but the video you linked doesn't seem to do a good job of exposing charlatism at all, it's a rather strange meme of a moment taken out of context. Edit: this random post on reddit seems to question this person's techings (?) And imo do a better job at 'exposing' https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/d1ewq/why_deepak_c...

A short transcript from the video: Chopra says 'all beliefs are a cover up for insecurity' An academic asks him "Do you believe that"? This shows the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid. That's Deepak's career in a nutshell. Nothing he says stands up to the most basic scrutiny.

I don’t know if that is a good example.

I could say that “everything is relative”, but that’s an absolute statement so it’s contradictory. However, whole philosophies—coherent ones—have been built on this premise. Or at least I am aware of one.

You basically have to bootstrap it with a segmentation of “truth” into “absolute” and “relative”. But as you develop it you need the “absolute” part less and less, like scaffolding for a finished building.

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#56

Post by msla »

qumpis wrote: post #41
s_dev wrote: post #36

This has no place on HN. Deepak Chopra is a charlatan on par with some edgy teenager running his own blog but professing to be the equivalent of a respected doctor or scientist. Here he is getting his "beliefs" exposed to some pretty basic questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka--VV-_t_U I'm going to flag this so dang can investigate further.

I've never heard of the person, but the video you linked doesn't seem to do a good job of exposing charlatism at all, it's a rather strange meme of a moment taken out of context. Edit: this random post on reddit seems to question this person's techings (?) And imo do a better job at 'exposing' https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/d1ewq/why_deepak_c...

He pushes the pseudoscience of Ayurvedic "medicine" and gets rich off of it.

More to the point, though, it's a matter of keeping the place clean: Pick up the small pieces of trash before the trash-spreaders think they're in good company and this place really becomes a dump.

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#57

Post by fkcgnad »

s_dev wrote: post #36

This has no place on HN. Deepak Chopra is a charlatan on par with some edgy teenager running his own blog but professing to be the equivalent of a respected doctor or scientist. Here he is getting his "beliefs" exposed to some pretty basic questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka--VV-_t_U I'm going to flag this so dang can investigate further.

I think the content of this post is pretty bad and a lot of it is bullshit. But I disagree with your logic here.

You should not flag a post based off of character you should flag a post based off of the content.

Deepaks reputation should not preclude his article from getting posted here if the post is genuinely good.

Let's focus on the statement he is making himself rather then judging the person behind the statement.

Either way, like I said I think the whole discussion on arbitrary definitions of random words is bs, but that is besides the point I am making here.

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#58

Post by qumpis »

s_dev wrote: post #49
qumpis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of the person, but the video you linked doesn't seem to do a good job of exposing charlatism at all, it's a rather strange meme of a moment taken out of context. Edit: this random post on reddit seems to question this person's techings (?) And imo do a better job at 'exposing' https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/d1ewq/why_deepak_c...

A short transcript from the video: Chopra says 'all beliefs are a cover up for insecurity' An academic asks him "Do you believe that"? This shows the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid. That's Deepak's career in a nutshell. Nothing he says stands up to the most basic scrutiny.

I understand the joke, and am only saying that context wasn't there.

Maybe Chopra proceeded to clarify his argument after the question asker had left, but the clip doesn't show that. It also doesn't show that Chopra ignored the point afterwards too. It's unknown to me.

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#59

Post by s_dev »

mistermann wrote: post #51
s_dev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A short transcript from the video: Chopra says 'all beliefs are a cover up for insecurity' An academic asks him "Do you believe that"? This shows the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid. That's Deepak's career in a nutshell. Nothing he says stands up to the most basic scrutiny.

> This shows the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid. Can you explain how this short excerpt "shows"[1] that it is a fact that "the entire premise of whatever argument he's trying to make is completely unfounded, deeply flawed and kinda stupid"? > That's Deepak's career in a nutshell. Nothing he says stands up to the most basic scrutiny. I do…

This is exactly the reason he uses big words and conflates scientific terms with his own ideas -- to sow confusion and hopefully be passed off on the benefit of the doubt. It's all just "chicken feed" and you've fallen hook line and sinker for it. There is zero academic or scientific value to what he says.

Can you name one decent contribution this guy has made to any field?

Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?

#60

Post by s_dev »

23B1 wrote: post #39
s_dev wrote: post #36

This has no place on HN. Deepak Chopra is a charlatan on par with some edgy teenager running his own blog but professing to be the equivalent of a respected doctor or scientist. Here he is getting his "beliefs" exposed to some pretty basic questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka--VV-_t_U I'm going to flag this so dang can investigate further.

The conversation on HN will be interesting and valuable though. I vote 'keep' Edit: it already is, as you can see. Baby/bathwater etc.

Nope -- successfully flagged. It's all nonsense -- the HN mod made the right call.
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