Human Nature
Notes
Are people inherently good? What are our default modes of thought and action? What is our true human nature? It is hard to separate the effects of nature vs nurture
It is believed that:
- A person is a community - we contain multitude within us, we are never just "one thing", especially not across time.
- humans are good as default - we seek the happiness of ourselves and others. The desire to harm others is a taught constraint to that goal.
- sense seeking creatures - we seek meaning for our lives, explanations for things that happen to us
- Communication is in our nature - we were built to communicate with others and share our thoughts, beliefs, perspectives.
- human Human is a social being - we were born to be a part of a community, to have relationships with others.
How we think:
- Risk Management - we tend to be loss averse as default
- Extended Mind - we tend to think through our interaction with the environment, specifically while using our bodies (walking, talking with the hands). Thinking is not isolated in the brain
- Storytelling - we convey information better through stories
- Utility - we can often see the world through mathematical lenses, trying to quantify the benefit from doing an action or receiving an item.
- Death - like it or not, death is a constant thought in our mind, and it dictates in one way or another our perception of reality and how we choose to dedicate our time and attention.
our social nature:
- Social Environment - we are highly affected by the social environment we are in, the expectations of others, social pressure and culture norms are a good predictor of our own behavior
- Social Contract - How do we form as societies? the theory of social contract suggests some answers to that.
Philosophers
Books
The Four Agreements (book) Theory of Moral Sentiments (book) Behave (book)