if you are a nerd like me, you often have to skip stage three because you'd like the intuitive empathy with others because in order to resonate with a group, you need to have a quite similar architecture, and if people are wired differently, then it's hard for

them to resonate with other people and basically have empathy, which is not the same as compassion, but it is a shared perceptual mental state. Empathy happens not just via inference about the mental states of others, but it's a perception of what other people feel and where

they're at. Can someone not have empathy while also not having a similar architecture, cognitive architecture as the others in the group? I think yes, but I experience that too. But you need to build something that is like a meta-architecture. You need to be able to embrace the architecture of the other to

some degree, also find some common ground. And it's also this issue that if you are a nerd, no means often, so people, is in neurotypical people have difficulty to resonate with you, and as a result, they have difficulty understanding you unless they have enough wisdom to

figure out what's going on there. Well, aren't we in the whole process of stage three to figure out the API to the other humans that have different architectures? And you yourself publish public documentation for the API that that people can interact with for you. Isn't this the whole process of

socializing? My experiment as a child growing up was that, um, I did not find any way to interface with the stage three people, and they didn't do that with me. So, okay, yeah, of course they tried it very hard, but it was only when

I entered the mathematics school at ninth grade, lots of other nerds were present. Um, that I found people that I could deeply resonate with and had the impression that, yes, I have the friends now. I found my own people. And before that, I felt extremely lonely in the

world. There was basically nobody I could connect to. And I remember, um, there was one moment in all these years where I was in there was a school exchange and it was the Russian boy kid from the Russian garrison station in Eastern Germany. You visit our school and

we played a game of chess against each other and we looked into each other's eyes and we sat there for two hours playing this game of chess and I had the impression, this is a human being, he understands, but I understand. We didn't even speak the same language.

I wonder if, uh, your life could have been different if you knew that it's okay to be different, to have a different architecture, whether like accepting that the interface is hard to figure out, takes a long time to figure out and it's okay to be different. In fact, it's

beautiful to be different. It was not my main concern. My main concern was mostly that it was alone, right? This was not the, so much the question is, is it okay to be the way I am? The I couldn't do much about it, so I have to do, I have to deal with it. But, um,

my main issue was that I was not sure if I would ever meet anybody growing up that I would connect to at such a deep level that I would feel that I could belong. So there's a visceral, undeniable feeling of being alone, yes. And I noticed

the same thing when I came into the math school that I think at least half, probably two-thirds of these kids were severely traumatized as uh children growing up, and in large part due to being alone because they couldn't find anybody to relate to. Don't you think everybody's

alone deep down? No, huh? I'm not alone anymore. It took me some time to update and to get over the trauma and so on, but I felt that in my 20s I had lots of friends and I had my place in the world, and it was I had no

longer doubts that I would never be alone again. Is there some aspect to which 'We're Alone Together' you don't see a deep loneliness inside yourself still? No. Sorry, okay. So that's the non-linear progression through the stages, I suppose. You caught up on stage three. It's stage

four, and so basically I find that many Nerds jump straight into stage four, bypassing stage three. Did they return to it then later? Yeah, of course. Sometimes they do, not always. Yeah. The question is basically, do you stay a little bit Autistic or do you

catch up? And I believe you can catch up. You can build this missing structure. Yeah, and um I basically experience yourself as part of a group, learn intuitive empathy, and develop the sense, this perceptual sense of feeling what other people fear. And before that, I could only basically

feel this when I was deeply in love with somebody and it's a visitor. So there's a lot of friction to feeling that way, like it takes, it only works with certain people, as opposed to it comes naturally. Yeah, it's frictionless. But um this is something

that basically later I felt started to resolve itself for me to a large degree what was the trick in many ways growing up and paying attention meditation the tab I had some very crucial experiences um in getting close to people building connections um cuddling a lot in my student years

so really paying attention yeah to the what is it to this feeling another human being fully loving other people and being left by other people and so building a space in which you can be safe and can experiment and um touch a lot and be close to somebody

a lot and over that over time basically at some point you realize oh it's no longer that I feel locked out but I feel connected and I experience where somebody else is at and normally my mind is racing very fast at high frequency so it's not always working like this

sometimes works better sometimes it works less but also don't see this as a pressure it's more it's interesting to observe myself which frequency I'm at and uh at which mode somebody else is at yeah man the mind is so beautiful in that way sometimes sometimes it comes so

natural to me so easy to pay attention pay attention to the world feel other people fully and sometimes the stress over silly things is overwhelming it's so interesting that the mind is that roller coaster in that way

How to deal with loneliness | Joscha Bach and Lex Fridman

Clips from the Lex Fridman podcast. Visit the main channel for full conversations and other videos.

Lex Clips

Difficulty with Empathy and Social Interaction

Nerds often skip stage three of social development due to difficulty with intuitive empathy.

Empathy is a shared perceptual mental state, not just inference about others' mental states.

Building a 'meta-architecture' to embrace others' cognitive architectures is necessary for empathy.

Neurotypical people may struggle to resonate with and understand those with different cognitive architectures.

Socializing is like figuring out the 'API' of other humans with different architectures.

Personal Experience of Isolation and Connection

Speaker lacked connection until finding others with similar cognitive architectures in math school.

Connection with a Russian boy during a chess game, despite language barriers, highlights the possibility of connection beyond shared architecture.

Speaker questions whether life would have been different with earlier acceptance of difference.

Speaker's main concern was loneliness, not necessarily acceptance of their difference.

Many students in math school were also severely traumatized due to childhood isolation.

Overcoming Loneliness and Developing Empathy

Speaker overcame loneliness and developed a sense of belonging in their 20s.

Many nerds skip stage three and jump to stage four of social development.

It's possible to 'catch up' on stage three and develop intuitive empathy.

Speaker developed intuitive empathy through experience, particularly deep love relationships.

Strategies for Building Connection and Empathy

Meditation, paying attention, and physical closeness helped develop empathy.

Creating a safe space for experimentation and connection is crucial.

Over time, speaker transitioned from feeling locked out to feeling connected.

The ability to connect with others fluctuates, influenced by mental state and stress.