But what if you had that backwards? That is, it's not that stabbing someone else is like stabbing yourself, but that stabbing yourself is like stabbing another?
I honestly don't see how that would make much of a difference. Either way, inflicting pain on yourself is not something that is easy to do for most people.
It makes all the difference
I don't think that either of these cases is actually accurate but I think its a cool thought experiment.
The vast majority of people find it is extremely difficult to seriously harm themselves. There is a strong psychological barrier against it. Most people have a hard time even making a small cut in their skin. And then if a person succeeds in injuring themselves there's pain.
The first case is that harming another is like harming oneself. These nonmen would feel a compulsion not to injure other nonmen. If they did, they would experience the pain of the injury themselves.
The second case is that harming yourself is like harming another. These nonmen could cut their own flesh and remain mostly remote from the experience. They would rarely have a reason to do this but when they did it would be easy. But if one was injured and the limb needed to be amputated, he would be capable of sawing through the arm without fighting his self-preservation instincts or even feeling pain.
Cool thought Wic. I like this. It makes you look at the not differentiating between your own touch and the touch of another trait from the right perspective.
In fact, the second possibility but with touch instead of pain seems fits well with the nonmen for me. They are more remote creatures than us. They experience of the world isn't as emotionally immediate as ours is. It's background for us but we have this constant flow of emotion and sensation associating us with our bodies. I can easily imagine the nonmen not having that.