Do you believe that empathy is an automatic feeling or a choice one makes?

Way to be definitive.  I'm almost positive I agree. 
;) :)

But then why do children need to be taught not to hurt others? Wouldn’t you say it’s harder to empathize if you have never had a certain experience yourself? 

Teaching anything  involves the capacity to learn.

There's more and more evidence that even very young children avoid causing pain and even seek to comfort each other - When they feel empathy. 

Well, it’s still a choice either way. Anybody can look at someone get their knee bashed in and tell that it would be painful, but it doesn’t mean that you inherently care or feel bothered by that pain. You still choose whether to offer sympathy and can ignore that pain if the person is someone you dislike.  This post was edited by Lady Ondine at January 27, 2020 10:19 PM MST

No - It's really not.

When it comes to empathy and compassion the only choices are the ones adults make - When we deny or accept our understanding of someone else's pain.

But for anyone who's totally emotionally isolated with no real ability to feel empathy, its not a choice at all. They don't care because they can't.

Well, for me, it is a choice. I don’t actively feel what another person feels, but I can imagine their perspective and choose to offer compassion. It’s not so much automatic concern as just an understanding of what it would feel like to suffer that pain and sympathy for that person for having to experience it—but it’s still an active decision to sympathize versus ignoring or even enjoying their pain. 

Look , I'm not trying to condemn you.

We disagree mostly because I know I'm sick - Even if I don't share every detail here every day. You seem to believe  that looking at someone's suffering and "enjoying their pain"  is a perfectly okay option. 

I think what I've learned is that there's a price everyone pays for that. 

But hey, I'm just dimwit slut  This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at January 28, 2020 3:29 AM MST

What is the price everyone pays? Just curious. 

The price is being unable to heal from your own damage.

I sort of think we've gone way beyond the scope of your original question, and into an area that I'm more  familiar with - Deviant sexual gratification and pornographic fantasy. You"be been pretty frank about labeling your own tendencies. But you should be smart enough to know that sadism is never about stability or self control. That vaguely enjoyable sensation you get when you imagine yourself torturing and mutilating innocent victims is just the beginning of a much bigger hunger. 

And you're the meat. 

I don’t see what would damage me though. The goal is to be doing the damage, not receiving it. : p

I don’t really think any of it is about control or stability. It’s purely about satisfying pleasure—not vaguely satisfying pleasure, but intensely satisfying pleasure. It’s probably the closest one could come to true release or catharsis. 

Anyway, the key here is to know when something is better left to the imagination, as the consequences of getting caught are simply not worth an experience that will ultimately be over as quickly as it started and would leave me wanting more. 

I don't wish you any harm  or sadness -  And even if all this ends in pain for you I won't be sticking around to enjoy it.

But based on everything I've done and seen in the skin trade I don't think what you're headed for is what you think. 

Good luck.

I feel like there is something you are not telling me. The skin trade? What am I headed for? This post was edited by Lady Ondine at January 28, 2020 7:10 PM MST

I would like to poke my beak in and make some suggestions which I believe get at the underlying neural reality here.

For most people, processing and understanding non-verbal language cues is automatic and mostly subconscious. People on the autism spectrum (such as yours truly) struggle with this task. Nevertheless, autism-spectrum people can learn what such cues mean and how to react to them through conscious learning and repetition. They get to a somewhat similar result via a different cognitive process. I believe you have similar struggles (and similar coping mechanisms) when it comes to the concept of empathy.

Unfortunately, I don't think your conscious efforts to learn how others process empathy will yield much useful information. In another neuroscientific analogy, I am blessed (or cursed?) with phenomenal peripheral vision, directional hearing, and peripheral attention. As a result, I am highly aware at almost all times of people and objects in my immediate vicinity. I don't do this consciously (most of the time), I just do it.

It took me decades to realize that very few people process their sensory world the way I do. I was convinced that other people were being deliberately rude and selfish when they would fail to notice and account for my presence (people blocking supermarket aisles were a particular pet peeve). But I have come to believe that they simply do not see me, because they don't have the brain circuitry I do. Yes, it's possible they could consciously learn to pay more attention to their surroundings, but that wouldn't be the same as the automatic periphery scan I do without conscious effort. Moreover, there is simply no way for me to explain to others how I do what I do. I just do it. It would be like trying to explain to someone how to pick up and hold an object with one's dominant hand. It's not a learned conscious behavior, it's an automatic motor skill.

Similarly, I don't think people who experience empathy as an automatic and mostly subconscious reflex can explain how to do it to someone who lacks that cognitive capacity.

Finally, it may not really matter (except to the degree you find your lack of understanding of empathy frustrating). There is a neuroscientist named James Fallon who specializes in trying to determine what makes serial killers different from "normal" people. In the process of his research, he discovered that he shares many neurological structures that he finds in his research subjects. Moreover, he believes he exhibits, in mild form, some personality traits common to serial killers.

One day, he decided as a conscious experimental manipulation to try to treat his wife with more kindness and empathy. He did so not because he wanted to be nicer to his wife for her benefit, but because he was curious what the reaction and outcome would be.

After a few weeks, his wife told him that she noticed how he was treating her better and she was very pleased he was behaving so. Fallon informed his wife there was no altruistic motive to his behavior, that it was just a conscious manipulation borne out of curiosity. His wife replied, "I don't care what your motivation is. Please keep doing it."

Similarly, if you can figure out how to do what an empathetic person would in most situations, the person at the receiving end of your behavior may not notice the difference nor care it wasn't borne out of the kind of empathy processing "normal" people do. 
That just leaves the question of whether you are motivated to simulate empathetic behavior, and only you can decide whether that's something you find worthwhile.

Hi Saltypebbles, thanks for your answer. 

Let me clarify that I don’t have any trouble with cognitive empathy or recognizing non-verbal cues. I can instantly look at someone’s face and understand what they are feeling. I can even walk into a room and feel that a vibe is off by subtle behaviors and cues. I am very aware of the feelings and emotions of others, so this is not an issue at all. 

The way I am using empathy is to separate the cognitive aspect of it with the affective aspect, i.e. recognizing vs feeling. So while I can immediately empathize on a cognitive level, that does not produce a reaction of feeling bad for them. For instance, if someone’s home burns down and they are in tears over it, I completely and fully recognize that they are suffering and automatically understand how awful the experience of losing a home would be—but rather than feeling that similar sadness and concern that some do, I’d either find thrill in their situation or just be indifferent to it. Of course I would still offer compassion on the surface, but the pain they have suffered would not weigh in on me. 

Now, some may argue that has little to do with empathy and I am still empathizing. Honestly, I’ve heard so many definitions of empathy, that is part of the reason I asked. I am curious how each person defines it. 

I am aware of the studies of neuroscientist Jimmy Fallon and psychopathy (damaged frontal lobe) but despite my predilections, am sure I have no such issues. 

I had considered using another analogy before settling on the autism/mind blindness one, which I think you interpreted a little too literally. Given your response, I think the other analogy may have been more useful.

I have a distant in-law who is red-green colorblind. Yet, in a practical sense, he is not. While his vision was tested and his colorblindness was confirmed, he effectively does "see" red and green. Over time, he has learned from environmental clues, social conventions, written descriptions, and such which objects in the world are red and which are green. With this knowledge he has trained his visual processing to recognize red and green even though he is physiologically incapable of seeing those colors.

I think your description of how you process empathy is very similar. You know how people are most likely to feel in a given situation, and you know what the appropriate social behaviors are, even if you cannot model others' feelings within your own mind.

So I stand by my claim that you can ask others "What's it like to feel X?" and derive little enlightenment from it. If you cannot model what it's like within your own mind, no amount of explanation will help. I have no objection to you asking (it causes neither harm nor offense), but I am dubious it will gain you much.

With respect to Fallon, I was NOT trying to imply you have serial killer traits. I have no way of knowing either way. I was more focused on his behavior towards his wife which, while completely motivated by selfish and abstract desires, still made his wife happy. 

To many people, altruistic behavior motivated by selfish motives isn't truly altruistic, and they will criticize such behavior. Mrs. Fallon didn't care. She simply enjoyed the fact her husband was treating her better.

Similarly, if you are capable and motivated to make the appropriate social gesture to the person with the freshly-burned-down house, that person probably won't care if your internal feelings are not the same as those of "normal" people. 

Your descriptions of your own behavior suggest you are capable. Whether or not you are motivated to behave in socially accepted and expected ways is something you'll have to figure out for yourself.

I understand your analogy, but I still believe you are wrong about me being incapable of modeling the emotions of others in my mind. I know exactly how they feel and can imagine myself in that exact same situation. It is not something I have to pretend or that I have had to cultivate. If someone loses their child, I know exactly what that pain would feel like and can immediately imagine myself losing my own hypothetical child and how awful that experience would be. The difference is that knowing how awful it is does not ruin my day or cause me to feel down. I can offer sympathy and compassion for that person (which I would do most likely, particularly because it is the appropriate thing to do if you want to remain in people’s good graces) but I could just as easily enjoy their pain if I feel like torturing someone. 

I do long to take innocent lives. It is probably the biggest fantasy of mine that has been in my mind since childhood. I want to capture and torture people to death in the most horrific of ways. At least, imagining it is exciting for me. I don’t know if the reality would be the same, but the fantasy is nice. Seeing people hurt or killed allows me to live vicariously through those actions, and that is why I watch the gore videos I do as a legal and safe outlet. The thing is, my desires to do this are really more about my own sadism than it is an empathy issue. I don’t want to hurt people because I lack compassion or empathy for their situation—I want to hurt them because the act of doing something cruel and irreversibly damaging brings me pleasure. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. 

But while these fantasies live in my head, my actions are generally good and my behavior towards others is very kind and helpful. I would say I am generally more compassionate and willing to help people than the average person around me, and most of my students would describe me as being very understanding and empathetic. 

This is a bit cryptic. Can you explain more, Merlin?

Hi Lady Ondine~
 
I believe in journey of souls.
When feeling empathy for the first time, a naive soul may be accompanied by another, wiser, soul. Feeling emotions for the first time can be a scary experience. 
How each soul feels empathy is entirely up to them.

To make matters confusing, sometimes the word, sympathize, is mistaken for empathize.

Sympathy is normally attached to sorrow, drama, and sadness.
Empathy can also have these woes but is not limited.

Interesting. Well, I respect your belief even though I don't necessarily believe in it. I think empathy is simply a tool that most social animals have developed as a means of having a cohesive group. 

I think you are mixing up empathy with kindness and compassion. They can go together, but they are not one in the same. And while some traits can be genetic, I don’t think it is always so simple. For instance, my parents are extremely caring people—my mom cares for animals and cries over roadkill and would likely give the shirt off of her back for a person in need. My father was a doctor and would often treat people free of charge when they could not afford it, and my brother is very sensitive to people and their needs. I’m the only member of my family who has ever had any sadistic predilections and fantasies, to my knowledge. 

Now, onto empathy: Just because you do not naturally care or feel an emotional reaction to someone’a situation does not mean you cannot still react with kindness or make choices to alleviate the pain of others. How you behave towards others is ultimately a choice. While some may be compelled towards compassion through empathy, plenty of highly empathetic people also ignore the pain of people they deem unworthy. People are selective with where they pour their energies, and that goes for each and every person. This post was edited by Lady Ondine at January 29, 2020 11:26 AM MST