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All Self Deception Consciousness Deception Lying Psychology Self Help Signaling Social Science

Famous Kevin Simler Quotes

“The point is, our minds aren't as private as we like to imagine. Other people have partial visibility into what we're thinking. Faced with the translucency of our own minds, then, self-deception is often the most robust way to mislead others. It's not technically a lie (because it's not conscious or deliberate), but it has a similar effect. "We hide reality from our conscious minds," says Trivers, "the better to hide it from onlookers.”

Lying Consciousness Deception Self Deception Signaling

Book:The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Source: The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

“Biology teaches us that we’re competitive social animals, with all the instincts you’d expect from such creatures. And consciousness is useful—that’s why it evolved. So shouldn’t it stand to reason that we’d be hyper-conscious of our deepest biological incentives? And yet, most of the time, we seem almost willfully unaware of them. We all know they’re there. And yet they make us uncomfortable, so we mentally flinch away.”

Self Deception Social Science

Book:The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Source: The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

“The fact that we’re competitive social animals fighting for power, status, and sex; the fact that we’re sometimes willing to lie and cheat to get ahead; the fact that we hide some of our motives—and that we do so in order to mislead others.”

Book:The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Source: The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life