EMPATHY, SYMPATHY, AND COMPASSION

What is the difference between the “specific talent(s)”(Dick, 124) of empathy, sympathy, and compassion? When I read the anthology definitions and the abstractions website, and then applied them to what I was reading in Androids, I was faced with numerous contradictions. It seems that one thing they all have in common is that they are unquantifiable – and rightly so. Because if we could truly quantify these aspects which, as argued in our last discussion, make us uniquely human, we could then apply that knowledge to non-human things – in Dick’s case, androids.

We are warned against the dangers of abstractions, but what about the danger of trying to define, to quantify, the things that truly are abstract? I base my view of abstraction on the Oxford English Dictionary definition “the idea of something which has no independent existence.”(Abstractions website) Basically, something which is subjective, that cannot exist without reference to other phenomena – be they tangible or imagined. In this way, our concepts of empathy, sympathy, and compassion truly are abstractions. The only differences to be found between them are in how they are carried out – how they are manifested in human actions. However, those actions do not define their nature – as their nature is intangible, abstract as the emotions that they produce and are produced by. So the nature of empathy, sympathy, and compassion is subject to the emotional context they are being viewed in, and thus leaves their “definition” open to much debate and inconsistency.

Perhaps then we shouldn’t try to define these concepts, but rather allow them to be innate, intangible qualities we recognize in ourselves and in others – not only through their actions, but through some immeasurable response in their person – a gut feeling, pulled heartstrings, etc.; all abstract rhetorical devices used to explain something that is not concrete, but that we know exists. So is the nature of empathy, sympathy, and compassion. Why then is Rick Deckard’s “gut feeling” not enough to distinguish humans from androids? They can’t project sympathy onto him, can’t empathize, are not drawn to compassion – they posses none of the human subtleties, none of the intangibles, that we sense in one another. So why is Deckard fooled by their ability to synthesize such reactions, through their words and actions?

Androids may seem to have human emotions,
but merely mimic them through their actions.
source: http://loyalkng.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/robot-love.jpg

This question helps to elucidate the nature of how we classify actions as being empathetic, sympathetic, or compassionate. They are all a result of how we project our own feelings, and can only be comprehended within the frames of our individual selves. They can also only be fully realized, fully observed, as we see them inside ourselves – we cannot honestly make judgments on the motives of others – even the intangible feelings we get from them could be merely projections of our own feelings, our desire to fill the gap between individuals, to support the idea of our capacity for co-feeling. But this desire gets in the way when trying to determine, as Deckard must, who possesses these uniquely human emotions and who does not.

As I said earlier, empathy, sympathy, and compassion are emotions that cannot be quantified. However, in 2021, and admittedly in our own age, humans have found ways to do just that. What is empathy? A subtle spasm in the eye muscles at the mention of a mounted deer head. What is sympathy? Compassion? Neuroscientists would say they’re the result of a precise sequence of neural firings, a combination of chemical compounds, a reaction not to a person, but to an electric signal. None of the definitions in the anthology follow this line of thinking, this new capacity for quantifying emotions. So we must ask ourselves – will we ever be satisfied with a quantifiable definition of our emotions? Or is it that which we cannot define – the intangible, the abstract – which makes them meaningful, which makes them human?

The definitions and the analysis by Walter Jackson Bate on page 274O do not attempt to describe empathy, sympathy, and compassion as independent forces, but rather describe them in terms of their effects – on the subject and the object. Both rely heavily on general terms – citing things such as “feelings”, “projecting one’s personality”, and “the fundamental reality and inner working.”(Anthology, 274J-O) What does any of this signify? Only how little we are able to articulate about our specific emotions without referencing some equally-as-vague construct. As it seems in Bate’s analysis, the more we try to explain these intangibles, the more we contradict ourselves. I’d love to go into an analysis of these contradictions, but I feel I’ve gotten far enough away from the issue of Dick’s novel already, and so I’ll take this opportunity to leave you with my vague assertions and circle back around.

So, Deckard cannot rely on his emotional responses in dealing with androids, but must remain detached – observing in them only that which is quantifiable. The issue arises when he cannot help but to project his own emotions onto the androids – specifically female androids. He reflects on how “it was an odd sensation, knowing intellectually that they were machines, but emotionally reacting anyhow.”(Dick, 95) This just proves that we create emotion where it doesn’t exist – not unlike forced relationships, with false constructs of love left clinging to a semblance of human connectivity. This is the world of 2021, where emotions – empathy included – have become hard to come by in their honest forms. It is not only that Deckard must struggle to believe that androids don’t posses emotions, but that he struggles with the idea that humans are equally as devoid of emotion, and that theirs might be of the same construct as the androids’ – synthetic or imagined. He shows this when he thinks, “most androids I’ve known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife. She has nothing to give me.” And so the constructs of empathy, sympathy, and compassion are essentially the same, despite their differences in application – they come from a selfish desire, or perhaps even a need, to experience the emotions of others – to remind ourselves that we are among other living, feeling beings, that we are not alone in our suffering or our joy. Perhaps this is why androids are threatening – because they refute that belief. Androids show us that we cant really tell who is feeling and who isn’t, that our ideas of sympathy, empathy, and compassion could merely be constructs of our own desire for that reality – a co-feeling reality in which we are all connected and our emotions for each other are real – real beyond the concrete, real in the way that only an abstraction can be.
Is this shared emotion real? We like to think so.
source:http://www.openhandweb.org/files/openhand/images//HuggingKidsSmall%5B4%5D.jpg