How Pleasure Works

Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom is fascinated by how human beings make sense of the world around them—physical and social environs alike. Working with kids, he has explored seemingly simple questions like, What makes a dog a dog? What makes a fork a fork? Over and over, he says, their answers suggest that even for very young children, what something is cannot easily be reduced to how it looks. A child can understand, for instance, that something might look like a tiger but actually be a lion. Something might look like a picture of one person, but actually be another. Children, says Bloom, give us a clear glimpse into “essentialism”—a belief that there’s a deeper nature to things that makes them what they are.

Intrigued by the notion that essentialism might affect more than the cold-blooded activities of naming and categorization, Bloom set out to determine if it might apply more generally to how we respond to things, to what moves us—in other words, to pleasure. In his newly published book, How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, Bloom delves into pleasures both sophisticated and gauche, universal and unique, real and imaginary. Drawing on his own research as well as studies in neuroscience, behavioral economics, and philosophy, he makes a powerful argument for essentialism at the crux of human pleasure… And why understanding pleasurable activities, from art to science to religion, is so critical to comprehending the human mind. Recently, Seed caught up with Bloom to learn more.

Yay for gauche pleasure!

Read more at Seed