Nothing is said about the transmission of negative emotions such as arrogance and hatred. What might this new research tell us about the psychology of political and evangelical rallies? I would hate to think that our blind obedience to cults and commissars is hard-wired.

Angular gyros...parietal lobule mushroom, metaphorical...Ramachandran. And mammalian.

Gordy Slack had me think about neurologist, Oliver Sacks. Sacks loves music. He wrote, 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.' I've not read his new book...the idiot and the wizard can, apparently, seem equally reasonable-- I think Sacks is saying something similar as here [?] in his new book, focusing on sounds. I've not yet read Oliver's new book. I've like his last reads.

Flashback- I know I can still hear a cry, a scream released the moment when a bullet pierces the human heart, or a distant night's, all night long, mournful bamboo flute sound after a b-52 aerial strike in a jungle.

Lately I'll find a quiet place to hide. Somewhere I'll go off in a pick-up truck, close my eyes, listen to each slight music's similitudinary sound. I'll listen to classical music, turn the radio off, watch a leaf toss in the wind, a birds in flight, a chime from a natural wind-- wood chimes that are tossed together as twigs, branch ticks, have a particular pleasantness, not like a metal ring-- but wood-hitting wood is so soothing to the ear drums...leaf rustles...

Im's a saying: A human body sense awareness mechanisms' are fearfully (not a fright scare fear, but that too) and wonderfully made. A body is not a machine, tho. If it were not for a calm-healing from nature-- for free, and no soothing ping, whisper: boom. But yes a flop clunk, your dead. But no a gentle, inspirational,

and dammit,

a Good read.

You see? This is what's wrong with the world. To talk about 'the problem' of altruism is very sad. It's not a problem, but the reason the human race has survived. I don't know why it's seen as an aberration. Clearly it's a survival mechanism which causes people to act for the survival of others

so that at some stage someone else will act to help them to survive. And anyone will tell you that the happiest people they know are those who help others. Helping others satisfies some need in human beings that can only be about survival, even if it happens in a roundabout way.

go outside immediately,

look into the night sky

and see the curved moon,

and a bright star, beside.

Listen.

Below is a quote from your article :

"If the crying woman had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, I might have felt her emotional pain, but I wouldn't have grown her tumor."

I knew a man who had a brother that died of cancer. He had a tumor in his chest and he died a slow painful death. This man spent a great deal of time at his brother's bed side and loved him dearly. Shortly after the borther's death a tumor in the very same place was discovered in this man. They tried everything to save him, but he died a year later. Of the very same cancer. I felt at the time that it must have been because of his empathy for his brother. What else could explain that ?

If you can mirror someone else, you can surely mirror yourself.

If you can joyfully or painfully feel your own pain or joy, then the quantity of joy or pain you feel is doubled. Mirror that total again, and yet again, and soon you're heading off the scale.

Perhaps this will lead to an explanation for the internal loop whereby self-regard feeds on itself, so that a nugget of achievement inflates within a few years to world-shattering status, self-conceived, for the discoverer.

Autism seems to be such a debilitating and profound disorder with such wide-reaching and severe effects - I doubt that it can be explained so simply as a problem or defect with mirror neurons.

I'd really be interested to see if sociopaths have problems with or differences in their mirror neurons!

Perhaps someone should send these scientists a copy of "the sociopath next door", reviewed on Salon.com in March, 2005 (it's an interesting interview with the author - I recommend looking it up.)

Nothing startling or interesting here at all, just another of the seemingly endless "discoveries" that this, that, or the other complex aspect of human behavior can be reduced to an enzyme, a gene, neural firing, something, anything biological. That deeply satisfies some people, bores others. Serious readers might want to consult Silvan Tomkins' amazing Affect, Imagery and Consciousness (or the work of someone he mentored, Gershen Kaufman). Tomkins posited decades ago that affect was both inherent and contagious. Meanwhile, let's all wait for the next stunning breakthrough. What might it be? Hmmm. Varying levels of terror are actually related to the size and shape of hair follicles and the ways in which our hair does or does not stand on end? That could have wonderful tie-ins with the hair transplant industry.

Before you go touting the merits of Gandhi, I suggest you find out a little more about him. By some accounts he was more in fiction than in fact. It seems that he was nothing more than a smart manipulator and/or zealot who indirectly causes the deaths of millions of people with his crackpot ideas and intransigence.

Could be that like assigning people a Gandhi-like empathy is more of an insult than a compliment

Be careful what you wish for. This could be used by creationists to assert that people are fundamentally biologically and chemically different from animals.

If I can feel someone's pain, I can feel their fear and hostility as well. If I recruit my sensitivities and positive feelings to interpret others, what about my disgust?

Why is the "mirror neuron" system thought to underly only altruism and niceness?

Surely it will also play a role in explaining how humans are nasty, status- and group-obsessed, driven by large-scale antagonisms and small-scale emphathies.