Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You cant leak your hidden intentions if you dont think they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception, the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the better to hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registered somewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact with other people.
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About Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker was a contemporary American american psycholinguist. Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Truth — Meditations on honesty, authenticity, and the search for truth