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Shankar Vedantam,Bill Mesler

Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain

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A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021
A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021


From the New York Times best-selling author and host of Hidden Brain comes a thought-provoking look at the role of self-deception in human flourishing.

Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being.

The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter.

Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.
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278 printed pages
Original publication
2021
Publication year
2021
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Quotes

  • Despandrihas quotedlast year
    Life, like evolution and natural selection, ultimately doesn’t care about what’s true. It cares about what works.
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    • Анна Разумоваhas quoted4 years ago
      Believing that reason and logic are all that matter is like imagining that a great city is only about its present, that the past does not matter and plays no role in shaping it
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      • Анна Разумоваhas quoted4 years ago
        It turns out there are excellent reasons for your eyes and brain to do all this filtering. Indeed, to see reality clearly would leave us worse off, not better. Our eyes and brain are not in the truth business; they are in the functionality business, and it turns out that discarding nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and sixty bits of data out of every billion is extremely functional
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