How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him.

– Adam Smith (1759, p. 1)

Random facts about empathy I dug up during the last week:

The word empathy is not – as one might think – derived from Greek. It appeared for the first time in 1909 in English literature. When we say empathy today, we mean “feeling with someone”. It might be a more adequate translation to go with “suffering with someone” (see: pathos).

In contrast to this, the term sympathy does actually have Greek roots.

Researchers have tried to differentiate between cognitive and emotional empathy, and found different brain regions connected to these concepts. People suffering from antisocial personality disorder are capable of cognitive empathy (enabling them to act extremely manipulative), but they do not actually “feel” with the other person (showing a severe lack of emotional empathy). Autists, on the other side, actually do have the ability to show emotional empathy as long as they are at least acquainted with the person suffering, but don’t show any signs of cognitive empathy. These concepts are heavily discussed in the current literature, and there also seems to be some data this rather simple differentiation cannot account for.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ataraxia (ἀταραξία “tranquillity”) is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a lucid state, characterized by freedom from worry or any other preoccupation.

– wikipedia

Psephology (“Lore of Pebbles”) is the statistical analysis of elections.

– via Basti

On the first of January 2002 the German currency Deutsche Mark was replaced by the Euro. Seven years later, over 13 billion (13 thousand million) Deutsche Mark are still “out there” – around 7 billion Euro.

Last year, around 160 million Deutsche Mark were handed in, which is only around 1.23% of all the Deutsche Mark circulating. Another interesting fact is that in contrast to other countries there is no deadline for changing Deutsche Mark into Euros.

• 33 million pieces of luggage were lost in the year 2008 – 90.000 per day!
• When you travel via airplane, there’s a chance 1.6% to lose your baggage.
• Try to avoid connecting flights. Your luggage will not be transferred successfully in over 40% of the flights.
• If you happen to lose your luggage (1.6%, as mentioned above), the chance of never ever seeing it again is 15% (adding up to a chance of 0.24% of losing your luggage completely).
• If that happens, and you are lucky, you’ll get reimbursed up to the sum of 1.100€.

(Sources: myfinances.co.uk & tagesschau.de)

Random facts:
Menschliches Leben ist nach den deutschen Bundesverfassungsrichtern “würdenbegabt”.

Was genau ist ein “geistig abnormer Rechtsbrecher“?

Was ist geistig abnorm? Was ist geistig?

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “a factitious word alleged to mean ‘a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflammation in the lungs’.”
It was coined to serve as the longest English word and is the longest word ever to appear in an English language dictionary.

Das deutsche Wort Freiheit kommt etymologisch von fri-hals – einen freien Hals haben, also nicht angekettet sein. Ich habe es unter anderem in einem gotischen Lexikon gefunden, es stammt sehr wahrscheinlich aus dem Germanischen.

— (vielen Dank an CJ!)