and as a result we directly perceive ( without simulation) a version of the other’s intentions , — Joshs

This is the part of your account I find objectionable. We cannot directly perceive someone else's internal state. There is a layer of indirection between the other's state and our perceptions.

Facial expressions are not emotions, they are configurations of facial muscles. They are alsosymbols that point to emotions. A sneer is a symbol which has an emotive meaning, and is the English symbol "contempt" in another medium.

We can only "read" another's expressions and body language and spoken language, it is all reading. The fact that it seems immediate does not negate that it is an interpretive act. This interpretive facility must exist for it's failure as Autism to also exist.

The fact that it seems immediate does not negate that it is an interpretive act. This interpretive facility must exist for it's failure as Autism to also exist. — hypericin

Yes , it is both immediate and interpretive, as is all perception. What I directly perceive of your feelings and intentions is a version of them, just as you who are experiencing them are also interpreting them
for yourself , and as a result you may also not recognize or understand them, and as they change you will need to reinterpret them. If I experienced your states exactly as you do we would be the same person. My point was that this interpretive act is not the consulting of an inner script.

just as you who are experiencing them are also interpreting them
for yourself — Joshs

But this is the opposite process. My emotions are immediate to me, what you call interpreting is encoding them symbolically into language. This encoding is a necessary step to use the emotion in symbolic thought. If I can't encode then I can't think about them. In the same way, without my conscious intervention my body encodes my emotions into the symbology of expression and body language.

Whereas you immediately perceive only symbols of my inner state: my face, body, and words.

You see the symbols of my emotions, I encode my emotions into symbols.

My emotions are immediate to me, what you call interpreting is encoding them symbolically into language. This encoding is a necessary step to use the emotion in symbolic thought. If I can't encode then I can't think about them. In the same way, without my conscious intervention my body encodes my emotions into the symbology of expression and body language.

Whereas you immediately perceive only symbols of my inner state: my face, body, and words.

You see the symbols of my emotions, I encode my emotions into symbols. — hypericin

You’re using a cognitive science vocabulary that differs somewhat from the psychological approaches to affectivity that I identify with. Your model tends to rely on a computer metaphor: We input a stimulus, encode it symbolically and process and store it. Emotions are meanings that attach to and color cognitions.
The enactive approaches I follow see affectivity as that aspect of sense-making that deals with the relative fit between events and my expectations of them. They are forms of situational assessment. All of my experiences have this affective aspect to them, since all perception is evaluative. This is the basis of language as well. Language isnt merely the encoding of meanings by linking them to arbitrary symbols. Language doesn’t passively refer, it actively construes. Feeling and perception is already proto-language in that it formulates fresh meaning.

When we ‘encode’ emotions , we articulate them expressively. The expression doesn’t just convey something already formed , it also changes what it invokes by giving it expression. What I am doing when I see your affective expression isnt simply reading a code. I am inventing a construction that comes neither from me nor from your behavior , but from a mesh between the two. This mesh is what I immediately construe , just as your feelings and heir elaboration are what you immediately construct from your situation.

The longest film project Warhol worked on was the series of Screen Tests he made of various artists, celebrities, collaborators, or whoever happened to walk in the door of his studio. In front of the camera, the subject was told to sit still, not blink; often they disobeyed. Together, the series serves as a kind of mission statement—a celebration of the destruction of high-low hierarchies, placing Susan Sontag next to Edie Sedgwick, Duchamp next to Taylor Mead.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/andy-warhol-films-1387729

Or for a DIY version, take a long look in the mirror, and see if you can work out how you are feeling from the expression on your face.

There's no point in asking
You'll get no reply
Oh just remember I don't decide
I got no reason it's all too much
You'll always find us
Out to lunch
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
We're vacant
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
Vacant.
and we don't care. — Pretty Vacant - Sex Pistols

There's always an extravagance to zombies, don't you think? They always over-act.

Or for a DIY version, take a long look in the mirror, and see if you can work out how you are feeling from the expression on your face. — unenlightened

Marry me! :heart: