[FRIAM] chicken-egg::gumflap-talk

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Hm. That sounds like a distinction in kind that's more likely a distinction in degree. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for episodic perspectives. I can read a post at 03:00 and read it in one way, with whatever that perspective might be. Then read it again after a workout, 3 cups of coffee, and a hot shower, and read it in an entirely different way. But I could also listen to a readout of it while working out. And if it's long enough, the perspective I have when I read the 1st part could be entirely different from the perspective I had when I finished.

I don't see any reason why the pseudo-synchronous meatspace conversations [†] are anything other than compact versions of the asynchronous post-response format.  Some of us may be more or less capable of near-real-time empathy than others. That doesn't mean near-real-time is fundamentally different from asynchronous.

And just like with NOT moving one's lips while reading relies on inhibitory signals, empathy relies on inhibitory suppression of one's *own* impulses. (It also relies on positive activation of those impulses. But the positive is usually given primacy when talking about things like empathy. My point is that it's a balance between the two.)

[†] "pseudo" because the stimulus-response is not instantaneous. There's a non-zero transient even in the fastest person.

On 6/8/20 7:20 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Incidentally, I think these asynchronous communications are not speech.  They are another kind of encoding and decoding system.   There is often ambiguity in terminology to be reconciled, and wider and narrower search that can be conducted to do that reconciliation, but that is not what I would call empathy.   Empathy is about anticipation and resonance of feelings.   I think in written communication correspondents should be expected to manage their feelings because they have a good opportunity to do so.

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☣ uǝlƃ