Mirror Neurons are a myth. Psychopaths don't live great lives.

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Mirror neurons, often credited with explaining complex behaviors like empathy, autism, and language learning, are largely overstated and lack the empirical support once believed. Their role in neuroscience is still debated but overall, the concept has diminished in perceived importance. Psychopaths, often glamorized in popular culture, face a more complex reality; many studies reveal they often exhibit below-average intelligence and higher rates of depression, contradicting the notion of them as invulnerable or liberated individuals. Contrary to the stereotype that all psychopaths are dangerous, most do not conform to the sensationalized archetype, and their lives can be quite challenging. Furthermore, the appeal of such personas may stem from their ability to manipulate social interactions without emotional constraints, but the genuine human connections we value depend on kindness and empathy, traits typically absent in those considered sociopaths.

Paul Bloom is a renowned psychologist and writer specializing in moral psychology, particularly how moral thoughts and actions develop in children. But his interests and books explore a wide range of topics, including the science of pleasure, the morality of empathy, dehumanization, immoral vs moral punishments, and our feelings about animals and robots. Bloom is a professor at the University of Toronto and previously taught at Yale for over 20 years.

Together Paul and Tyler explore whether psychologists understand day-to-day human behavior any better than normal folk, how babies can tell if you’re a jerk, at what age children have the capacity to believe in God, why the trend in religion is toward monotheism, the morality of getting paid to strangle cats, whether disgust should be built into LLMs, the possibilities of AI therapists, the best test for a theory of mind, why people overestimate Paul’s (and Tyler’s) intelligence, why flattery is undersupplied, why we should train flattery and tax empathy, Carl Jung, Big Five personality theory, Principles of Psychology by William James, the social psychology of the Hebrew Bible, his most successful unusual work habit, what he’ll work on next, and more.

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Recorded May 13th, 2024.

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