{"id":8154,"date":"2018-12-31T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=8154"},"modified":"2018-12-14T10:33:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T17:33:29","slug":"truth-superstimulus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/truth-superstimulus\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Ultimate Truth a Superstimulus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A superstimulus<\/a> is something that provides a sensory signal outside of the range we normally experienced in our ancestral environment.<\/p>\n

The classic example is chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is sweeter, fattier and more delicious than almost anything existing in nature. Fruit is usually more acidic. Honey doesn\u2019t have any fats to balance the sweetness. <\/p>\n

\"Superstimulus\"<\/figure>\n

The result is that people love chocolate cake. Like many modern junk foods, they activate our taste buds and hunger circuits in just the right way that we\u2019re driven to overeat.<\/p>\n

Goodness as a Direction, not Destination<\/h2>\n

Evolution has equipped us with a lot of instincts which point us in directions that (tend) to be better for us, but which may not be good at all possible extremes. As long as those dangerous extremes were rare in our history, there wasn\u2019t much pressure to avoid going too far.<\/p>\n

Sweetness is just one example. We eat too much sweets because where they did occur (fruit and honey), they were rare enough and transient enough that eating a lot of them was almost always a good idea. Now we live in a place where they\u2019re neither rare nor temporary and we get fat.<\/p>\n

Another example is pornography. We normally wouldn\u2019t be presented with so many arousing visual scenes unless it was a good opportunity to reproduce. So people find it appealing, even though too much may be bad for our relationships and sex lives.<\/p>\n

Modern news may be an increasing super stimulus. Our ancestors would hear about angering\/fearful stories only occasionally, living in small bands of people. Now we are bombarded with events from around the world that make our feelings of injustice and retribution rise. The world is getting better, yet the news is increasingly rage-provoking and depressing.<\/p>\n

Philosophical Superstimuli<\/h2>\n

The concept of superstimuli are well established in many different areas of evolutionary psychology. But I want to consider another possible idea that I haven\u2019t heard expressed before. Our hardwired desire for truth is also susceptible to superstimuli.<\/p>\n

Questions like:<\/p>\n