The Irony of Talking on FaceTime

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

When we say sad and lonely, people don't get it. They have no idea of what those words mean to us. There are many flavors of sad; the only way you can specify them is with additional words. We had Patrick House on the program, the neuroscientist a couple of times. He said that in some dimension, this is the essence of the human experience.

Psychologist and writer Adam Mastroianni says our minds are like the keep of a castle protecting our deepest held values and beliefs from even the most skilled attacks. The only problem with this design for self-preservation is that it also can keep out wisdom that might be both useful and true. Mastroianni's summary of the problem is "you can't reach the brain through the ears." Listen as Mastroianni talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the implication of this view of mind for teaching, learning, and our daily interactions with the people around us.