Empathy gap (hot-cold)

Biological Parallel

A well-fed python cannot "remember" the desperation of hunger that drove it to ambush prey weeks earlier—satiation produces a fundamentally different physiological state (lowered metabolism, reduced sensory alertness). Similarly, a cold-shocked reptile in torpor cannot access the decision-making of its warm, active state. The empathy gap—inability to predict our behavior in different emotional states—reflects state-dependent cognition: different physiological conditions activate different neural circuits, literally making you a different decision-maker. You can't simulate starvation when sated because the cognitive architecture that drives starving-you isn't currently running.