Sublime

I hadn’t realized how prevalent dissociative states were in people.

They are based on a conflation of intelligence—the neocortical algorithm—with the emotional drives of the old brain—things like fear, paranoia, and desire.

Perceiving the state of mind of another is a crucial ability for social creatures

People feel (or presume) an authorship of their thoughts and actions that is illusory.

Perception, the neuroscientist Anil Seth writes, is “a generative, creative act.” It is “an action-oriented construction, rather than a passive registration of an objective external reality.” Or as the neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett notes, “Scientific evidence shows that what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell are largely simulations of the

We are deeply disposed to perceive people as the authors of their actions, to hold them responsible for the wrongs they do us, and to feel that these transgressions must be punished.