Why You Feel Bad When Nothing Is Wrong - Rob Kurzban
Chris Williamson talks with evolutionary psychologist Rob Kurzban about why we have feelings at all. Kurzban explains his idea that emotions measure something and then motivate action, and why many of them misfire in modern life.
The gist
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Kurzban says feelings measure something, like blood sugar or a nearby threat, then push us to act, unlike a Waymo with few priorities.
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Kurzban says emotional dials like anxiety and claustrophobia can be set too high, and anxiety is limited by its opportunity cost.
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Kurzban says envy and road rage misfire in modern life, so ask what evolution is trying to get you to do before acting.
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Kurzban calls the human appetite for moral condemnation, boosted by social media, a kind of moral roulette that often hits the wrong person.
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Williamson says Jhana meditation, which welcomes wandering thoughts instead of letting them go, helps him drop shame about what he feels.
"I got here today in a driverless Waymo, and in some sense it sort of wanted to pick me up at my hotel, and then it sort of wanted to make a right on red, which it did, by the way, very safely, just to say."
▶ Play at 1:4113 creators recommend it, including Peter Diamandis, 20VC with Harry Stebbings, and Andrew Huberman.
See all on the Waymo page"Evolutionary Psychiatry, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. — Unreal. Yeah, really good. — Yeah, people should definitely go out and buy both books for sure."
▶ Play at 18:02
Chris Williamson uses it
"Maybe this is a meditation practice that I do called Jhana. One of the interesting things about that compared with classic mindfulness is with classic mindfulness a thought arises and then you purposefully notice it and let it go... But with the Jhana approach, what's cool, yo..."
▶ Play at 2:23:55What they recommend · 4 picks
"Maybe this is a meditation practice that I do called Jhana. One of the interesting things about that compared with classic mindfulness is with classic mindfulness a thought aris..."
"Evolutionary Psychiatry, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. — Unreal. Yeah, really good. — Yeah, people should definitely go out and buy both books for sure."
"By the way, everyone needs to go and subscribe to Living Fossils on Substack. I'm a subscriber and it absolutely rules... Hey, I read the contra CBT three-part series on Living ..."
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2 picks · host
"Maybe this is a meditation practice that I do called Jhana. One of the interesting things about that compared with classic mindfulness is with classic mindfulness a thought aris..."
"By the way, everyone needs to go and subscribe to Living Fossils on Substack. I'm a subscriber and it absolutely rules... Hey, I read the contra CBT three-part series on Living ..."
Rob Kurzban
2 picks · guest
"Evolutionary Psychiatry, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. — Unreal. Yeah, really good. — Yeah, people should definitely go out and buy both books for sure."
"I got here today in a driverless Waymo, and in some sense it sort of wanted to pick me up at my hotel, and then it sort of wanted to make a right on red, which it did, by the wa..."
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