I’m reading Patricia Churchland’s Braintrust, with much interest and profit.
There’s a great bit at the beginning of chapter 6, “Skills for a Social Life.”
The social world and its awesome complexity has long been the focus of performances – informally in improvised skits around the campfire, and more formally, in elaborate productions by professionals on massive stages. Among the cast of characters in a play, there is inevitably a wide variation in social intelligence, sometimes with a tragic end, as in King Lear. [p 118]
I love that, because it’s not always noticed enough that much of Lear’s problem is that he’s just stupid. He’s stupid in the way that people who have too much status and flattery … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
