I'm Not Any Happier Than You

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Some of that religious effect I think is due to probably factors into the social networking part. If you're just going with your spouse every Sunday to the group, and it doesn't matter what they're talking about, they have music and singing and free checking afterwards. And so it's a social thing. You get some of the benefits of that. One of the cool findings which was kind of which comes increasingly relevant to all of us when we when we age is that is a sort of surprising you shape pattern and happiness where you’re pretty happy when you when you are young, 18, whatever.

How does the brain — a three-pound gelatinous mass — give rise to intelligence and conscious experience? Was Freud right that we are all plagued by forbidden sexual desires? What is the function of emotions such as disgust, gratitude, and shame? Renowned psychologist Paul Bloom answers these questions and many more in Psych, his riveting new book about the science of the mind.

Shermer and Bloom discuss: neuroscience • human nature • religion • souls • consciousness • Freud • sex and desire • Skinner • development • language • perception • memory • rationality • appetites • differences and disorders • the good life • happiness.

Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. His research explores the psychology of morality, identity, and pleasure. Bloom is the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including, most recently, the million-dollar Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. He has written for scientific journals such as Natureand Science, and for the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic Monthly. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Against Empathy, Just Babies, How Pleasure Works, Descartes’ Baby, The Sweet Spot, and Psych: The Story of the Human Mind.