Define Empath

 Empathy, or more accurately, the lack of empathy is a large part in what makes humanity. I believe that my response to this topic could be much longer than requested but for now will start with just that.

For humans, empathy is a hard thing to grasp. Empathy is feeling what another person feels or at least trying to feel that way.

It is hard to grasp because for most humans their empathy is so limited or they are in denial that it even exists. For example, a mother will feel the pain of her child as if it was her own.

However, she will not tend to feel the pain of a dying person because that is something she can't relate to. So even with empathy, there are limits.

For example, another person might hurt someone and not feel bad about it. They may be indifferent to the pain they caused because that is what they are used to. If the tables were turned then maybe they would start feeling empathy for those people.

For humans, it is easy to be empathetic if their life has been shaped in a certain way. Most people are not empathetic and can't empathize because they have never met someone who was different than them.

Empathy is the ability to relate and connect with another. It is an act of deep intimacy through which one understands another human being in their fullness. The term empathy originates from the German word einfühlung, which means "feeling into".

As a child's mind develops, they become more able to empathise with others around them. As adults, we can still learn how to empathise effectively by listening carefully and opening our hearts.

Empathy is the foundation of all social interaction. It allows us to connect with others and share their emotions. Empathy enables humans to build relationships, which are necessary for a fulfilling life.

Empathy is not merely understanding another's viewpoint, but rather relates to how we connect with them emotionally. Empathy allows us to feel and share the emotions of others.

Empathy is an internal process that is linked to our emotions. It causes us to feel what another person feels, which causes us to care about how others are feeling and behaving.

Empathy is the ability to identify and relate to another human being's thoughts, feelings, or experience. It also means that we are able to feel what others feel.

Empathy is the ability to relate to another person and understand how they feel in a particular situation. Empathy allows us to love others, who are not like ourselves.

Empathy is the ability to take on others' perspectives, and to respond appropriately. As such it's a necessary human trait for social cohesion, which promotes individual and collective survival.

Empathy is a function of the limbic system, which processes and relays emotional information. Empathy failure can occur when there is damage to this region or resulting neurotransmitter imbalance.

In the context of human society, empathy allows us to cooperate, which is a necessary precondition for our survival as a species. We can work together and accomplish much more than we could alone.

For example, consider the altruistic behavior of members of a wolf pack. They hunt and kill prey as a group, yet each member keeps some meat for itself without eating it in front of the others.

If one member behaved in this way, it would be ostracized from the group. Cooperation and empathy are important because they promote social cohesion.

When we cooperate and empathize with each other, we develop a sense of trust. This trust is what underpins our society.

In my opinion, empathy is the fundamental property that makes life possible. A single cell organism will only be so long as it can empathize with its environment - be aware of what's going on around it and react accordingly to ensure its own survival. If we trace back the origins of humanity, we find our ancestors were once a group of hunters and gatherers who relied on their senses to survive; namely sight and hearing. These two senses are arguably the basis for any other sense or ability humans have today. The same goes for animals in general.

Animals and humans alike have developed their senses to empathize with the world around them. This is an undeniable fact - some animals possess a sense that we lack, such as echolocation, or heightened senses of smell. The same goes for us; we have evolved further than our ape-like ancestors by developing better sight, hearing and cognitive capacity.

Now, I'm going to tackle the definition of empathy and how it applies to humans in particular. In my opinion, we seem to have a dualistic approach towards the world around us.

On one hand, we have the clear-cut definition of empathy - 'The ability to understand and share the feelings of another'. On the other hand, we might say that a human is capable of empathizing with their environment because they are aware. In this case, awareness would be considered an innate property for humans within our surroundings.

In other words: humans are capable of empathizing with their environment, because they have evolved to develop senses which encompasses understanding. Humans can understand the world around them using sight and sound.

However, if we think about it from the perspective of an animal, our definition becomes blurred. To put things simply: humans are capable of empathizing with their environment based on knowledge gained through senses.