Abstract (English) Current research on cross-species empathy mostly relies on material and phenomenological evidence such as genetic homology, neural circuits, and behavioral observation, presenting a research characteristic of "emphasizing carriers over mechanisms", and has not yet formed a unified, formalizable, and quantifiable underlying explanatory framework. From the perspectives of information science and topology, this paper proposes the Empathetic Topological Theory (Emotional Isomorphism Hypothesis), arguing that the core mechanism of cross-species emotional intercommunication lies in the topological isomorphism of emotional information processing pathways between different living systems, rather than the complete identity of material carriers. This paper constructs a five-layer topological model of emotional information processing with its formal expression, provides an operational definition of topological isomorphism at three scales and designs corresponding quantitative indicators, proposes a cross-species empirical verification scheme based on brain network data, and completes the demarcation from classical theoretical positions at the level of scientific philosophy. Ultimately, it provides a clear, computable, and falsifiable unified theoretical framework for cross-species empathy research, promoting the expansion of this field from the material-centered paradigm to the structure-centered paradigm. Keywords: Cross-species empathy; Information emergence; Topological isomorphism; Emotional information processing; Structural centralism; Affective computing
Jian Wen (Sat,) studied this question.