This technique of “place yourself in the other’s shoes and visualize their ‘universe’ from inside” might be useful not only for avoiding cases of the typical mind fallacy or false consensus effect (whereby you assume your epistemic and behavioral patterns are “normal”), but also the correspondence bias (whereby you attribute others’ actions to their innate character traits and your own to your particular situation). What these cases have in common is that they are often self-serving: you get to fit in socially, plus excuse your social infractions. Trying to understand different universes can de-center yourself from your attention.
We can only do this empathic inference because of the underlying neurological architecture we share. It is not always possible for arbitrary people to empathically infer the behaviour of another arbitrary person. This is why not everyone can pass the Turing test.
For people that fit in to different neurological profiles (e.g. apathetic people and uber empathic people, the inferential distance may be too much). Not everyone can put themselves in a sociopath’s shoes for example.
I ask because Quarendo’s comment was about the impact of the technique if implemented, and yours seems to be about how we cannot expect the technique to be universally applicable in the first place.
This technique of “place yourself in the other’s shoes and visualize their ‘universe’ from inside” might be useful not only for avoiding cases of the typical mind fallacy or false consensus effect (whereby you assume your epistemic and behavioral patterns are “normal”), but also the correspondence bias (whereby you attribute others’ actions to their innate character traits and your own to your particular situation). What these cases have in common is that they are often self-serving: you get to fit in socially, plus excuse your social infractions. Trying to understand different universes can de-center yourself from your attention.
We can only do this empathic inference because of the underlying neurological architecture we share. It is not always possible for arbitrary people to empathically infer the behaviour of another arbitrary person. This is why not everyone can pass the Turing test.
For people that fit in to different neurological profiles (e.g. apathetic people and uber empathic people, the inferential distance may be too much). Not everyone can put themselves in a sociopath’s shoes for example.
Query: was this meant to be a top-level reply?
I ask because Quarendo’s comment was about the impact of the technique if implemented, and yours seems to be about how we cannot expect the technique to be universally applicable in the first place.