The Elephant in the Brain:
Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
a new book by
Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson

Now available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
Order from Audible, Amazon, BN, Google, Target.
Published by Oxford University Press

What people are saying

“If you want to know what makes people tick, read The Elephant in the Brain. Simler and Hanson have created the most comprehensive, powerful, unified explanation of human nature and behavior to date.”
— Jason Brennan, Professor of Business, Georgetown University
“This book will make you see the world in a whole new light.”
— Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg columnist; author of The Great Stagnation
“The Elephant in the Brain is a masterpiece.”
— Scott Aaronson, Director, Quantum Information Center, University of Texas, Austin

Read more....

Overview

the elephant in the room, n. An important issue that people are re­luc­tant to ack­now­ledge or add­ress; a social taboo.

the elephant in the brain, n. An important but un­ack­now­ledged fea­ture of how our minds work; an introspective taboo.

Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains are therefore designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to get ahead socially, often by devious means.

But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better. And thus we don’t like to talk — or even think — about the extent of our selfishness. This is “the elephant in the brain,” an introspective blind spot that makes it hard to think clearly about ourselves and the explanations for our behavior.

The aim of this book is to confront our hidden motives directly — to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once our minds are more clearly visible, we can work to better understand human nature: Why do people laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen?

Beyond our personal lives, unconscious motives also lurk within large-scale social institutions such as art, charity, education, politics, and religion. In fact, these venerated institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their “official” ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates and cast fatal doubt on many polite fictions. You won’t see yourself — or the world — the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.

A more detailed outline is also available.

Other goodies

About the authors

Kevin Simler is a writer and software engineer currently living in San Francisco, CA. You can read more of Kevin's work at his blog, MeltingAsphalt.com.

Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a PhD in social science from Caltech, master's in physics and philosophy from U. Chicago, and worked for nine years in artificial intelligence as a research programmer at Lockheed and NASA. He helped pioneer the field of prediction markets, and recently published The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth. He’s had sixty academic publications, 3660 citations, 720 media mentions, given 320 invited talks, and blogs at OvercomingBias.com. More here.

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