From: "Gary Britt" 

Simulation theory could explain why democrats are constantly projecting
duplicitous, unethical, and staged solely for the camera of public opinion
behaviors upon Republicans.  They are looking at the outward behaviors of
Republicans but then modeling that which they see with their own brain and
how their own brain works.  Presto, Judge Alito's wife crying becomes a
staged and highly planned event of a cold and calculating mind desperate
for power, because that's the model of the world for themselves in the
recesses of their own mind.

Excellent.

Gary

"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:43cf0d4e{at}w3.nls.net...
> Actually it appears everyone can
>
> http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050427_mind_readers.html
>
> Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds
> Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and
understand
> their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we
> generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science.
>
> Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root.
We're
> all essentially mind readers, they say.
>
> The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting.
>
> Mirror neurons
>
> In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey
> when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the premotor
cortex,
> an area of the brain responsible for planning movements. The cluster of
> cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but likewise
when
> the monkey saw the same action performed by someone else. The cells
> responded the same way whether the monkey reached out to grasp a peanut,
or
> merely watched in envy as another monkey or a human did.
>
> Because the cells reflected the actions that the monkey observed in
others,
> the neuroscientists named them "mirror neurons."
>
> Later experiments confirmed the existence of mirror neurons in humans and
> revealed another surprise. In addition to mirroring actions, the cells
> reflected sensations and emotions.
>
> "Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's mental
> shoes," says Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of
> California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. "In fact, with mirror neurons
we
> do not have to pretend, we practically are in another person's mind."
>
> Since their discovery, mirror neurons have been implicated in a broad
range
> of phenomena, including certain mental disorders. Mirror neurons may help
> cognitive scientists explain how children develop a theory of mind (ToM),
> which is a child's understanding that others have minds similar to their
> own. Doing so may help shed light on autism, in which this type of
> understanding is often missing.
>
> Theory theory
>
> Over the years, cognitive scientists have come up with a number of
theories
> to explain how ToM develops. The "theory theory" and
"simulation theory"
are
> currently two of the most popular.
>
> Theory theory describes children as budding social scientists. The idea is
> that children collect evidence -- in the form of gestures and
expressions --
> and use their everyday understanding of people to develop theories that
> explain and predict the mental state of people they come in contact with.
>
> Vittorio Gallese, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma in Italy and
> one of original discovers of mirror neurons, has another name for this
> theory: he calls it the "Vulcan Approach," in honor of the Star Trek
> protagonist Spock, who belonged to an alien race called the Vulcans who
> suppressed their emotions in favor of logic. Spock was often unable to
> understand the emotions that underlie human behavior.
>
> Gallese himself prefers simulation theory over this Vulcan approach.
>
> Natural mind readers
>
> Simulation theory states that we are natural mind readers. We place
> ourselves in another person's "mental shoes," and use our
own mind as a
> model for theirs.
>
> Gallese contends that when we interact with someone, we do more than just
> observe the other person's behavior. He believes we create internal
> representations of their actions, sensations and emotions within
ourselves,
> as if we are the ones that are moving, sensing and feeling.
>
> Many scientists believe that mirror neurons embody the predictions of
> simulation theory. "We share with others not only the way they normally
act
> or subjectively experience emotions and sensations, but also the neural
> circuits enabling those same actions, emotions and sensations: the mirror
> neuron systems," Gallese told LiveScience.
>
> Gallese points out, however, that the two theories are not mutually
> exclusive. If the mirror neuron system is defective or damaged, and our
> ability to empathize is lost, the observe-and-guess method of theory
theory
> may be the only option left. Some scientists suspect this is what happens
in
> autistic people, whose mental disorder prevents them from understanding
the
> intentions and motives of others.
>
> Tests underway
>
> The idea is that the mirror neuron systems of autistic individuals are
> somehow impaired or deficient, and that the resulting "mind-blindness"
> prevents them from simulating the experiences of others. For autistic
> individuals, experience is more observed than lived, and the emotional
> undercurrents that govern so much of our human behavior are inaccessible.
> They guess the mental states of others through explicit theorizing, but
the
> end result is a list -- mechanical and impersonal -- of actions, gestures
> and expressions void of motive, intent, or emotion.
>
> Several labs are now testing the hypothesis that autistic individuals have
a
> mirror neuron deficit and cannot simulate the mental states of others.
>
> One recent experiment by Hugo Theoret and colleagues at the University of
> Montreal showed that mirror neurons normally active during the observation
> of hand movements in non-autistic individuals are silent in those who have
> autism.
>
> "You either simulate with mirror neurons, or the mental states of others
are
> completely precluded to you," said Iacoboni.
>
>

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