PAUL BLOOM

THE ORIGIN OF PLEASURE

His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on languaje, morality, religion, fiction, and art. We often think of bias and prejudice as rooted in ignorance. But as psychologist Paul Bloom seeks to show, prejudice is often natural, rational ... even moral. The key, says Bloom, is to understand how our own biases work, so we can take control when they go wrong. So pleasure is a cultural and natural thing. Examples: easter,fair,holy week,christmas...

In the speech he presents an accessible and extremely funny discussion of everyday pleasure, drawing upon the research, he explain How Pleasure Works. In a wide-ranging discussion, he argues that there are deep and surprising commonalities in the pleasures that we get from art, food, sex, stories, and consumer products and there are some cultural ingredients in pleasure.

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