I remember my father telling me not to catch anyone’s eye while walking on the main streets of the city. If we catch another person’s eyes, we can really see who they are, but we can also see through them; We were weak. Seeing and being seen are connected. The look we give and the look we get Two sides of one reality.
Similarly, most of us have experienced wheezing when we see someone else wheezing. Or seeing someone cry brings tears to our eyes – or seeing someone else feel bad. Maybe for the same reason, just smiling can make us feel more like- laughing. Why did this happen?
in the book Moral knowledge: What makes us goodThe author, Mark Matusek, details how “a newborn baby, barely able to see, can imitate adult facial expressions within an hour of birth.” When the child imitates a caregiver, it creates a connection between the child’s expressions, his emotions, and the other person. When a child sees its mother or guardian, it waits for the other to see. And when he sees him, her or them, the child lights up.
Science fascinates me. Or maybe it’s the ability to study reality closely and recognize the patterns and connections that lead us to feel the things we do or feel. It can help us perceive the universe more “objectively,” meaning relatively free from the encirclement of the ego, or without many of us. bias And personal stories get in the way.
when i was Teaching Psychological Literature For high school students, we read book chapters by neuroscientist VS Ramachandran, esp The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Discovery of What Makes Us Human. This book exemplifies what I love about science. It talked about many things that expanded our imagination and understanding of our humanity. It introduced us cheater’s or Capgras syndromeWhere we look at a person we know well, such as our spouse or parent, and perceive them as a stranger. or SynesthesiaWhen we blend our senses, we can taste colors, see sounds, or hear shapes.
Students both loved reading and yet had trouble trusting the power of our brains to expand our sense of ourselves or to distort how we perceive the world.
This introduced us to one of the most fascinating discoveries in recent memory, the discovery of brain cells called mirror neurons. This discovery so captured the imagination of many people that it led to intense speculation; Scientists and non-scientists alike jump to conclusions before science catches up with our desire for answers. I felt if the discovery wasn’t made, someone had to make it. As a result, The attack on science beginsAnd the whole thing went from the bright light of the title to the darkness of doubt and fury.
In the 1990s, a group of Italian scientists led by Giacomo Rizzolatti of the University of Parma discovered something strange. They were studying the behavior of monkeys. When a monkey notices an object, or interacts with it, for example reaching out to grab a peanut, certain neurons fire. These same neurons also fire when the monkey sees other monkeys doing the same thing. In other words, they were understanding what others were doing by having their own neurons fire as if they were doing it. They were “reading the minds of others” working by modeling themselves. Ramachandran describes these neurons as virtual reality simulators provided by nature that help us understand the intentions of others. They were natural sympathy generators.
One of my students asked, If we can model the actions of others, how can we not repeat them? Why don’t we constantly imitate others? Of course, sometimes we do. For many of us, if we see a task done, we may repeat it. We learn by imitation, even imitation. But we have immune cells in our skin, joints, frontal lobes and elsewhere that can reduce the mirroring effect.
Other students asked another important question: If we have mirror neurons, how can there be so much violence, so much misunderstanding, hatred, anger in the world?
If our minds can help us understand other people, they can too To distort our beliefs and assumptions They are our mirror. We know it; We are so strongly influenced by others, not just by what they do, but also by language, culture and social systems. When in a group, we are more easily persuaded to do things we would never normally do.
Ramachandran asks us to imagine how orangutans, who also have mirror neurons, gracefully swing through the trees. They see a branch and their mirror neurons reproduce what they see. Their imagination says, “I can perceive this,” and it does as it imagines. The back of the brain acts as a crossroads between mirror neuron systems in the visual (occipital), tactile (parietal) and auditory (temporal) brain centers.
Similarly, we humans can stand in a batter’s box on a baseball field with a bat and watch a baseball come our way and know when to swing. Mirror neurons help calculate the path of a thrown ball.
Mirror neurons not only provide pathways for empathy, but for Human thought and consciousness. We use the expression “self-reflection”; or self-mirroring. We not only reflect in our minds what others do; We mirror what we do. We don’t always like it, as we feel guilt or regret when we imagine how others might mirror or interpret what we’ve done. But when we look at ourselves as if we were looking at someone else, or when we look from a wider perspective than just the confines of our ego, we can better refine our thinking.
The universe includes a deeper realm interdependent Awareness How we treat others is how we treat ourselves. As we move through the world, we are always reflecting on what and who is around us. When we speak, we are not just speakers But the other(s) we are talking to We often talk to ourselves as if we are both the speaker and the listener.
Ramachandran called mirror cells the “civilization-shaping neurons” or what made civilization possible. Maybe if we spend a part of each day mindful Studying how cells work within ourselves, We can help save or rebuild civilization into something more just and compassionate.
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