"You mean like an aura or something? I had someone on last week with a Kirlian photography gizmo.
She shook her head and grimaced. "No. Not that. What I was after was a current of quantum probabilities, kind of like, um" call it an induced electrical current, like you get when you wave a magnet past tightly wrapped wires. Except in this case, it's not really electricity. What the theory suggested was that brains generate a novel kind of energy field, a quantum circulation, and that consciousness actually happens there, not in what we think of as the brain at all.
When the radio host didn't say anything immediately, Jason rose from his chair in the sound booth with an anxious expression.
"I think" Daugherty said finally, and just over a whisper, "I think I get it. But" but how do you get from there to all of the speculations and accusations that are echoing through the blogosphere?
Paula nodded excitedly. "It's very simple,
really. That nonlocalized virtual energy field, which works infinitely faster
than any computer, represents memories and experiences in the form of moving
patterns,
like waves at sea. Since this tapestry of patterns is always circulating, new memories and experiences can be modulated over older ones. But crucially, and this is the point that seems to have sparked all the yelling, it's also possible that the mind can overlay a model of what it would be like to be someone else, and in that way to step into that other person's shoes, as it were.
"So" Daugherty hazarded unsteadily, "if I understand what you just said, then empathy is the ability to overlay a model of someone else onto this energy field?
"Exactly. And if someone were unable to accomplish that overlay, then they wouldn't be able to experience empathy. All I said in my conclusion was that a failure of that sort could explain some of the differences between people whose worldview is built on compassion, and people whose worldview has some other basis.
The phone lines, which had been dark since the break, suddenly lit up. Daugherty picked one at random. "You're on the air, caller.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
