Paul Bloom Quotes

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Paul Bloom

Profession : Psychologist

Birth : December 24, 1963

Almost nobody believes anymore that infants are insensate blobs. It seems both mad and evil to deny experience and feeling to a laughing, gurgling creature.

Paul Bloom

Imagination tends to be truly useful if accompanied by the power of mental control - if the worlds in one's head can be purposefully manipulated and distinguished from the real one outside it.

Paul Bloom

Empty heads, cognitive science has taught us, learn nothing. The powerful cultural and personal flexibility of our species is owed at least in part to our starting off so well-informed; we are good learners because we know what to pay attention to and what questions are the right ones to ask.

Paul Bloom

Perhaps looking out through big baby eyes - if we could - would not be as revelatory experience as many imagine. We might see a world inhabited by objects and people, a world infused with causation, agency, and morality - a world that would surprise us not by its freshness but by its familiarity.

Paul Bloom

If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well - better, in many ways, than devout ones.

Paul Bloom

Morality is often seen as an innovation, like agriculture and writing. From this perspective, babies are pint-sized psychopaths, self-interested beings who need to be taught moral notions such as the wrongness of harming another person.

Paul Bloom

The emotions triggered by fiction are very real. When Charles Dickens wrote about the death of Little Nell in the 1840s, people wept - and I'm sure that the death of characters in J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' series led to similar tears.

Paul Bloom

Imagination is Reality Lite - a useful substitute when the real pleasure is inaccessible, too risky, or too much work.

Paul Bloom

Some of the natural world is appealing, some of it is terrifying, and some of it grosses us out. Modern people don't want to be dropped naked into a swamp. We want to tour Yosemite with our water bottles and G.P.S. devices. The natural world is a source of happiness and fulfillment, but only when prescribed in the right doses.

Paul Bloom

We are naturally moral beings, but our environments can enhance - or, sadly, degrade - this innate moral sense.

Paul Bloom

Once we accept violence as an adaptation, it makes sense that its expression is calibrated to the environment. The same individual will behave differently if he comes of age in Detroit, Mich., versus Windsor, Ontario; in New York in the 1980s versus New York now; in a culture of honor versus a culture of dignity.

Paul Bloom

Modern science tells us that the conscious self arises from a purely physical brain. We do not have immaterial souls.

Paul Bloom

I don't doubt that the explanation for consciousness will arise from the mercilessly scientific account of psychology and neuroscience, but, still, isn't it neat that the universe is such that it gave rise to conscious beings like you and me?

Paul Bloom

Periods of cooperation between political parties shouldn't be taken for granted; they are a stunning human achievement.

Paul Bloom

In politics and in society, we can use our reason to rise above our parochial natures. Too bad that our elected officials don't choose to do so more often.

Paul Bloom