Are They Adaptations or Accidents?

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A jeffrey miller argues that sexual selection plays a role in our desire to create things. At do you think about the debate on whether things like music and art are adapt s, adaptations ary or they're like what steve pinker calls, you know, cheese cake? The answer is going to depend on what we're talking about, am, so so. And the story might, for any of these individual things, be plicated that t could be partially an adaptation and partially an accident.

We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? In his latest book, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, Bloom aims to understand how people find meaning in their lives, and, moreover, to explore what he calls, “the sweet spot” — the proper balance between pleasure and suffering. As one of the world’s leading psychologists, drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, Bloom shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure.