em·pa·thy noun ˈem-pÉ™-thÄ"
2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this
It is an interesting word, often used in a general sense to indicate someone with compassion. What happens when the vicarious experience becomes real rather than imagined? Does it then become something different? A physical bond would comport with our genetic synesthesia, enabling a real bond that becomes much more than a perception. This would constitute a new sense in many ways, further removing us from the human species, producing an evolutionary branch that might necessitate a new node on the tree. This, of course, will be something the evolutionary biologists will need to define further, and I am willing to let the debate become settled later, seeing no benefit in producing a definitive answer now.
