Can Aspies develop empathy?

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I don't know how to define empathy, but the proof is there that the parts of the brain utilized by neurotypicals when socializing or reading cues does not function the same way or even less in autistics!

Some definitions have been proposed, but I still keep reading things that simply refer to "empathy" with no qualifier. And I think they're wise to not use the term in the DSM.

It's not the neurological differences, or differences in brain activation, that's at issue. Yes, these differences exist and can be detected and measured. It's the interpretation of those differences.

Reading social cues ≠ empathy.

I would base this on a couple of points:

1. Most social cues are culturally determined and need to be learned. Most people learn the cues of their home culture while growing up and, much like language or reading, they become innate. However, when people are go outside their home culture, they miss or misinterpret the social cues and commit assorted faux pas.

In Dr. Tony Attwood's The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome he has a section on moving to another culture in which he comments that a number of aspies emigrate and live in other cultures where their social clumsiness is treated much more tolerantly, being regarded as due to their being from a foreign country.

It is also possible to learn the social cues of another culture, just as it's possible to learn another language. Or several other languages.

2. The claims made for empathy go far beyond reading social cues. In fact, the vast majority of definitions and descriptions don't even mention social cues. They emphasis features that are much more fundamental than culture and which would be expected to function on a universal level, irrespective of cultural differences.

To an extent this is the case. People — including those on the spectrum — can recognize broad emotional states, such when someone is angry or sad or happy, but miss subtler expressions or the sort that are communicated by social cues when dealing with individuals from another culture. However, the claims for empathy go well beyond just being able to recognize broad emotional states.

If the argument is that the ability to automatically read social cues is the foundation on which empathy is built, then empathy is limited by all the same things that limit the reading of social cues. It cannot be universal, innate or a marker of humanity — all claims routinely made for it.

this "empathy" thing is just all a trick i think.
i reckon it's all done with smoke and mirrors myself.

when I witness other people hurting in a way that I have hurt in the past or present, then it is very real to me and I feel strong emotional disturbance at the hurting I see. but when I see things like natural disasters and destroyed communities and traumatized survivors, all I can manage to feel is a dumbth/numbness and a thankfulness that it wasn't happening to me.

you are lucky to have the ability to be emotionally affected by external events.

i feel like everything i am is contained inside my skull which is about .8" thick, and there is no magic which can transport stuff through the bone of my skull to my internal feeling.

if it is not happening to me, then i can only witness it objectively.

^^^but sometimes it really hurts if I can't do anything to help 'em then what good does it do?

well sometimes you just gotta watch.
there's nothing you can do but understand.

^^yeh, I guess that's the whole grand plan, that we're supposed to learn to understand.

no plans.
it's all just done by ear.
if you're good then you'll do good and if you're bad...well you know.

music is the great bridge.

and with music comes stendahl's syndrome.

i do not know what that is and i am sure it will not affect my sense of musicality even if i did.

that was one song where mick got to sing sad.