{"id":3690,"date":"2023-05-11T10:13:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T10:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/?p=3690"},"modified":"2023-05-26T10:18:22","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T10:18:22","slug":"on-not-being-a-horrible-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/?p=3690","title":{"rendered":"On not being a horrible person"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Reading The Human Mind by Paul Bloom for New Scientist, 11 May 2023<\/a><\/p>\n

Inspired, he tells us, by The Origin of the Universe, John Barrow\u2019s 1994 survey of what was then known about cosmology, the Canadian American psychologist Paul Bloom set about writing an introductory tome of his own: a brief yet comprehensive guide to the human mind.<\/p>\n

Emulating Barrow\u2019s superb survey has been hard because, as Bloom cheekily points out, \u201cthe mysteries of space and time turn out to be easier for our minds to grasp than those of consciousness and choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first thing to say — though hardly the most interesting — is that Bloom nevertheless succeeds, covering everything from perception and behaviour to language and development; there\u2019s even a small but very worthwhile foray into abnormal psychology. It\u2019s an account that is positive, but never self-serving. Problems in reproducing some key studies, the field\u2019s sometimes scandalous manipulation of statistics, and the once prevailing assumption that undergrad volunteers could accurately represent the diversity of the entire human species, are serious problems, dealt with seriously.<\/p>\n

Of course Bloom does more than simply set out the contents of the stall (with the odd rotten apple here and there); he also explores psychology\u2019s evolving values. He recalls his early behaviourist training, in a climate hostile to (then rather woolly) questions about consciousness. \u201cIf we were asked to defend our dismissal of consciousness,\u201d he recalls, \u201cwe would point out that intelligence does not require sentience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intelligence is no longer the field\u2019s only grail, and consciousness is now front and centre in the science of the mind. This is not only a technical advance; it\u2019s an ethical one. In 1789 Jeremy Bentham asked whether the law could ever refuse its protection to \u201cany sensitive being\u201d, and pointed out that \u201cThe question is not, Can [certain beings] reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?\u201d<\/p>\n

Suffering requires consciousness, says Bloom; understanding one enables us to tackle the other; so the shift in interest to consciousness itself is a welcome and humanising move.<\/p>\n

This strong belief in the humanitarian potential of psychology allows Bloom to defend aspects of his discipline that often discomfort outside observers. He handles issues of environmental and genetic influences on the mind very well, and offers a welcome and robust defence of Alfred Binet\u2019s 1905 invention, the measure of general intelligence or \u201cintelligence quotient\u201d. Bloom shows that the IQ test is as robust a metric as anything in social science. We know that a full half of us score less than 100 on that test; should this knowledge not fill us with humility and compassion? (Actually our responses tend to be more ambiguous. Bloom points out that Nazi commentators hated the idea of IQ because they thought Jews would score better than they would.)<\/p>\n

Bloom is concerned to demonstrate that minds do more than think. The privileging of thinking over feeling and intuiting and suffering is a mistake. \u201cA lot depends on what is meant by \u2018rational.\u2019 Bloom writes. If you\u2019re stepping outside and it\u2019s raining and you don\u2019t want to get wet, it\u2019s rational to bring an umbrella. But rationality defined in this manner is separate from goodness. \u201cKidnapping a rich person\u2019s child might be a rational way to achieve the goal of getting a lot of money quickly,\u201d Bloom observes, \u201cso long as you don\u2019t have other goals, such as obeying the law and not being a horrible person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloom\u2019s ultimate purpose is to explain how a robustly materialistic view of the mind is fully compatible with the existence of choice and morality and responsibility. This middle-of-the-road approach may disappoint intellectual storm-chasers, but the rest of us can can be assured of an up-to-the-minute snapshot of the field, full of unknowns and uncertainties, yes, and speculations, and controversies — but guided by an ever-more rounded idea of what it is to be human.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading The Human Mind by Paul Bloom for New Scientist, 11 May 2023 Inspired, he tells us, by The Origin of the Universe, John Barrow\u2019s 1994 survey of what was then known about cosmology, the Canadian American psychologist Paul Bloom … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617,78],"tags":[752,1067,709,232,77,1066],"class_list":["post-3690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-reviews-and-opinion","category-reviews-and-opinion","tag-ethics","tag-iq","tag-neurology","tag-new-scientist","tag-psychology","tag-rationalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3691,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690\/revisions\/3691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}