I FEEL YOUR PAIN 91the mirror neuron system codes observed actions and contributes to action
understanding” (176). The dots/hand experiment suggests that mirroring
can be neuroscientifically enacted as a differential and differentiating pro-
cess rather than a generic or universalizing one.^10
An atomistic picture of mirror neurons sees them as generating mean-
ings about the other in concert with the impartial affordances of the world
and the universal bodies and motor schema of conspecifics. The result
is the transfer of objective information between bodies about subjective
and phenomenological states, and thus the production of intersubjective
knowledge as both pure intercorporeality and, somewhat ironically, as epis-
temically neutral. The forms of intersubjectivity this approach describes
emerge out of events in which individual body- subjects have occasion to
observe each other interacting with objects in the world. However, the in-
tersubjective knowledge itself is not emergent, and certainly not divergent
(unless pathological); rather, it is predictable, reflecting already drawn out
motor schema and affordances that do not themselves seem to be changed
in the interaction. Alternatively, mirror neuron systems can appear as part
of a situated perception^ —^ inflected by learned, symbolic associations that
may differ or differentiate. If mirroring is developed by associative learning,
and through exposures to social interaction, it can be transformed, en-
hanced, or reversed through experience. This suggests that mirror neurons
do not receive neutral meanings about the other. Rather, body- subjects and
worlds bring particularities to present encounters of the other at multiple
levels and are themselves transformed in such encounters. The epistemic
outcome would be joint or collective (Slaby 2013) and emergent (Murphie
2010) and would necessarily vary across combinations of persons, condi-
tions, and situations.^11
Empathy, Alterity, Otherness
Do racialization and other forces make a difference in how people know
each other? On Wheeler Avenue in the Bronx where he was killed, Diallo
is memorialized on a huge mural that also depicts the Statue of Liberty and
the words American Dream. This image underscores how generalized con-
cepts of collective harmony (American Dream) obscure painful conflicts
and differences. By juxtaposing the story of Diallo with the discussion of