For what it's worth I believe in the past few years much has been made of diagnoses such as Asperger's Syndrome to explain away a lack of some to feel compassion or an ability to empathize with others. Certainly there is a spectrum of Autism, but the diagnosing of Asperger's Syndrome is based on a set of characteristics that we all could relate to on some level. I am personally aware of at least two cases of Asperger's Syndrome where the child is social and able to function in a group - when they are supervised properly with appropriate discipline - but what these kids do lack is what was once called "emotional intelligence". Is it a case of inheriting the lack of mirror neurons when the parents of said Asperger's patients also lack empathy for others and introspection? I know at least one set of parents who would appreciate explaining their son's lack of empathy for others to neurons misfiring, and taking the onus off of proper parental control and discipline.

And finally, is this how we explain George Bush? He's a sociopath because he lacks a mirror neuron?

Gordy Slack's article immediately made sense to me.

We who are highly sensitive, whether for good or not, pick up other people's emotions and their bodily states too, consciously or more often, unconsciously.

I have a nephew who is very tuned into others. He seems to read my mind. We both must have an unusual number of "mirror neurons" or whatever this phenomenon will ultimately be called. When we are together, if I have a bump on my head, he gets one on his. If I think about something and say so aloud, he'll be thinking the pricise same thing. He's had chronic stomach pains and now I have that too. This is merely one of a million examples of how we who are on the far, theother end of the autism spectrum have the joys but also the pain of knowing others deeply.

For an immediate example: Last night I was with my adult daughter who tends toward the autism end of the spectrum tho she is surely NOT autistic. Let's say she has episodes and always has that look schizoid or lonely or cut off to me. So, a group of us were walking around Manhattan and she was forging ahead, alone, clearly wanting her own company.

After a while I became concerned since she can isolate herself and I feared she was doing just that.

I caught up with her and she was in a bad mood. I asked why. (At the time I was feeling almost blissful)--She said: "I have a pain in my stomache." Me: "So let's go to Duane Reede and buy some peptobismol" --a medecine that usually stops her pain. She refused, and we entered Barnes and Noble as planned.

After a mere ten minutes in the store, while she was upstairs and I was downstairs, an awful feeling came over me. Not stomache ache per se, just a total downer. I knew from long experience that it was her pain I was taking on, involuntarily, but habitually. She got steamed at me for being a 'downer' while I noticed she was now fine, or at least she became a part of the group what I could no longer handle. I had to leave and get some fresh-ish air.

I do not mind taking on others' ills if I can throw them off. But that is tricky business if the other is walled off and/or too familiar and important. Another example: My dad, my most beloved parent, was having dialysis in the early 80's. My mom had died so I did most sessions sitting with him and like the comment about a brother being too empathic, I felt his pain. And one day, a nurse said, "here take a valium, it often helps." I will never forget the moments after he did so, how I relaxed noticeably, as if we were in one body.

Which brings to mind the film ET. To best understand my unusual body/emotion/thought-sharing with my nephew my reference point for now is that film. While re-watching ET together we found ourselves laughing-- for the film mirrored our most unusual and usually pleasurable bond.

Remember? ET drinks beer at home and the kid gets tipsy. To me, this phenonemom is all too familiar. Altruism is also higher with us who pick up others' moods. But one must TRY and have a few boundaries or else the mirroring types will die out. That is no joke. I think this psychology, which is mine, is potentially as pathological as autism. So friends here: What is the term for "too little autism" because that is where some of us live, for good and ill.

Mirror neurons look like a survival tool for a group of people. If one is in danger, that pain will directly transmit to the rest of the group, and they can then take action. Makes perfect sense.

So, in explaining Republicanism and centrist Democratism, is there some 'short changing' of this neuron in some people, so that they do not fell the same level of empathy? I.E. like psychopathology?

As bloomsbury and fuzzo already pointed out, altruism and compassion are not mistakes, problems, or irrational. Rather it is precisely BECAUSE we are all connected that we feel compassion and altruism.

One of my favorite Buddhist expressions is "when one lights the way from someone else, he lights his own way as well." When you help, ultimately you help yourself. Compassion is literally self-interest, even though it is motivated by selflessness.

The oneness of self and environment is a Buddhist concept that is 3,000 years old. There is unlimited potential in each moment of life, and it is the tendancy of the self to be "swept up" in the moment by the happiness or unhappiness of the lives around the self, and the environment where the self exists. The life-condition (how happy or unhappy) the self is also permeates the environment simultaneously.

Because we are all individuals with our own perceptions, it is difficult to believe that we are connected to the environment. As western religion teaches, we see the world as this place that was created before we got here, and we were thrown onto it. The Budhist view is to understand that there is no life without an environment and vise-versa. The illusion is to see the self as seperate from the environment, and other people. Reality is to understand that we are connceted to the environment the same way that fish are connected to the water in which the swim. One doesn't exist without the other.

I believe that this will be a paragigm shift in thought, because I truly do not believe the human race can exist any longer without without developing understanding and consciousness to this principle.