What happens when you show an infant's tongue? - The chance is high that the child then returned the favor. If you a monkey that sings? - The monkey could agree with (see left). If you watch another accidentally touches a hot stove? - Man pulls a pained expression his hand to the body. And when you see sick people to put their own immune system on alert . The cause of these feelings and reactions is the same: it is the only recently discovered so-called mirror neurons in our brain. Some describe it as the most important discovery in the Neurophysiology of late. In simple words there are nerve cells in our brain that simulate all the actions, feelings and moods of those around us. Diego Maradona to see us when dribbling towards goal, in our brains is a virtual Copy of the striker created. And we risk not only "a little bit with him," no, we are actually in that moment, Diego Maradona. Let us see how someone else is pricked with a needle, there is a corresponding response in our brains out, so that only the absence of pain we must be calm in order to show no defensive or escape behavior. Simply by watching so inevitably we put ourselves into the other person.
Why bother? - It's simple: because we understand our fellow human beings better. Evolution has provided us with actual brain cells that are responsible for empathy (the neuroscientist VS Ramachandran calls they like to publish also " Dalai Lama neurons "). Man as a social system from the ground up, they need to facilitate the interaction with others. He has the inner lives of others, their intentions, emotions, etc. guess not by logical conclusions from their external behavior, he feels just as if it were his own! Significantly, even in people with autism, people who have problems interacting with others, a weak mirror neuron activity been established. Even doctors' protect themselves "by a reduced sensitivity of the ongoing management of pain of others.
The less direct experience Empathy for another person but is just tied to immediate perception. We see a helpless people on the streets, we have a greater need to help him than when it comes to millions of starving Africans is that we have never seen. clear evolution from a theoretical point of view: We should worry only about the immediate past members of the tribe who were related to us many times, and not to people who do not concern us. Therefore agree in the famous trolley dilemma most respondents, a human sacrifice in an indirect way, by turning the switch, but not directly by pushing down from the bridge. The Dalai Lama neurons, to make his suffering as our own, to prevent it creates a hand.
Asians have traditionally distanced themselves from the idea of the individual. For it is one of the community, the association to which one belongs to, the unit under Miscellaneous. Mirror neurons give them right in a way. When I interact with others, I flipped on their heads and thus become a part of them. The boundaries between the individual and "the others" are resolved to some extent. It is, as long as you come into direct contact with other, never "alone". I'm also a bit of you, and not by deductive conclusions, but quite direct - thanks to the mirror in my brain.
