The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain - Tali Sharot

While the capacity for both awareness and prospection has clear survival advantages, conscious foresight also came at an enormous price—an understanding that somewhere in the future, death awaits us. This knowledge—that old age, sickness, decline of mental power, and oblivion are around the corner—is less than optimistic. It causes a great amount of anguish and fear.
Ajit Varkil, a biologist at the University of California at San Diego, argues that the awareness of mortality on its own would have led evolution to a dead end. The despair would have interfered with daily function, bringing the activities and cognitive functions needed for survival to a stop. Humans possess this awareness, and yet we survive. How?
The only way conscious mental time travel could have been selected for over the course of evolution is if it had emerged at the same time as false beliefs. In other words, an ability to imagine the future had to develop side by side with positive biases. The knowledge of death had to emerge at the same time as its irrational denial. A brain that could consciously voyage through time would be an evolutionary barrier unless it had an optimism bias. It is this coupling—conscious prospection and optimism—that underlies the extraordinary achievements of the human species, from culture and art to medicine and technology. One could not have persisted without the other. Optimism does not exist without at least an elementary ability to consider the future, as optimism is by definition a positive belief about what is yet to come, and without optimism, prospection would be devastating.

"The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain - Tali Sharot"

Recomiendo este libro a todos aquellos "creyentes" de los diversos Dioses y Vírgenes que se han inventado e imaginado desde los orígenes de la humanidad: debéis saber que ese sentimiento maravilloso e inefable que os hace "creer", no es más que mera consecuencia de un simple proceso cognitivo de vuestro cerebro evolutivo: el hombre ha evolucionado para distorsionar y falsear la realidad exterior, de manera que pueda obtener así el consuelo necesario para sobrellevar el conocimiento consciente del sufrimiento y el dolor implícito del mundo.

http://www.amazon.com/Optimism-Bias-Irrationally-Positive-Vintage/dp/0307473511

(si alguien quiere leer el libro pero no gastar dinero, os puedo pasar una versión en formato epub ;))

"The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain - Tali Sharot"

Recomiendo este libro a todos aquellos "creyentes" de los diversos Dioses y Vírgenes que se han inventado e imaginado desde los orígenes de la humanidad: debéis saber que ese sentimiento maravilloso e inefable que os hace "creer", no es más que mera consecuencia de un simple proceso cognitivo de vuestro cerebro evolutivo: el hombre ha evolucionado para distorsionar y falsear la realidad exterior, de manera que pueda obtener así el consuelo necesario para sobrellevar el conocimiento consciente del sufrimiento y el dolor implícito del mundo.

http://www.amazon.com/Optimism-Bias-Irrationally-Positive-Vintage/dp/0307473511

(si alguien quiere leer el libro pero no gastar dinero, os puedo pasar una versión en formato epub ;))