The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday LifeOxford University Press, 01/12/2017 - 288 من الصفحات Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen? Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their "official" ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain. |
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الصفحة 8
... mind continually acts to distort information flow in favor of the usual goal of appearing better than one really is.”5 Emily Pronin calls it the introspection illusion, the fact that we don't know our own minds nearly as well as we ...
... mind continually acts to distort information flow in favor of the usual goal of appearing better than one really is.”5 Emily Pronin calls it the introspection illusion, the fact that we don't know our own minds nearly as well as we ...
الصفحة 12
... minds, inducing awkward contortions of selfdeception. Matthew 7:3 asks, “Why worry about a speck in your friend's ... mind when you have an elephant in your own?” In Part I, our goal is to confront the elephant as directly as possible ...
... minds, inducing awkward contortions of selfdeception. Matthew 7:3 asks, “Why worry about a speck in your friend's ... mind when you have an elephant in your own?” In Part I, our goal is to confront the elephant as directly as possible ...
الصفحة 17
... mind games. We'll discuss this in more detail at the end of the chapter. SOCIAL GROOMING Let's start with grooming behavior among primates. While humans are relatively hairless, most other primates have thick fur all over their bodies ...
... mind games. We'll discuss this in more detail at the end of the chapter. SOCIAL GROOMING Let's start with grooming behavior among primates. While humans are relatively hairless, most other primates have thick fur all over their bodies ...
الصفحة 23
... mind- reading powers. But the mind- reading powers of nonhuman primates are weak compared to our own, and so they have less need to obfuscate the contents of their minds. We'll discuss this more thoroughly in later chapters. But before ...
... mind- reading powers. But the mind- reading powers of nonhuman primates are weak compared to our own, and so they have less need to obfuscate the contents of their minds. We'll discuss this more thoroughly in later chapters. But before ...
الصفحة 32
... Mind, “Our minds evolved not just as survival machines, but as courtship machines,” and many of our most distinctive behaviors serve reproductive rather than survival ends. There are good reasons to believe, for example, that our ...
... Mind, “Our minds evolved not just as survival machines, but as courtship machines,” and many of our most distinctive behaviors serve reproductive rather than survival ends. There are good reasons to believe, for example, that our ...
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