Will Storr

If you've got a belief, The brain will find evidence to back up your belief. No matter what you believe about gender or Israel-Palestine or whatever it might be, your brain is going to find multitudinous evidence to back up what you believe. You're going to see it everywhere. And that's one of the tricks of the kind of storytelling brain. We live in this story world. We live in this narrative.

If you've got a belief, The brain will find evidence to back up your belief. No matter what you believe about gender or Israel-Palestine or whatever it might be, your brain is going to find multitudinous evidence to back up what you believe. You're going to see it everywhere. And that's one of the tricks of the kind of storytelling brain. We live in this story world. We live in this narrative.

And the brain's not interested in what's the truth. The brain's not really interested in you having this kind of perfectly clear understanding of reality. The brain wants you to succeed in your life as a human. And what that means is we have to achieve connection with a group. And once we've achieved connection with a group or a tribe, we kind of earn status within it.

And the brain's not interested in what's the truth. The brain's not really interested in you having this kind of perfectly clear understanding of reality. The brain wants you to succeed in your life as a human. And what that means is we have to achieve connection with a group. And once we've achieved connection with a group or a tribe, we kind of earn status within it.

And the brain's not interested in what's the truth. The brain's not really interested in you having this kind of perfectly clear understanding of reality. The brain wants you to succeed in your life as a human. And what that means is we have to achieve connection with a group. And once we've achieved connection with a group or a tribe, we kind of earn status within it.

And so to earn connection to that group, we've got to believe their story. Every group has a story it tells of the world, whether it's a political organization or a cult or a religion or, you know, You know, me and you are in the kind of same kind of cultural group. We believe roughly the same things. We have a shared reality.

And so to earn connection to that group, we've got to believe their story. Every group has a story it tells of the world, whether it's a political organization or a cult or a religion or, you know, You know, me and you are in the kind of same kind of cultural group. We believe roughly the same things. We have a shared reality.

And so to earn connection to that group, we've got to believe their story. Every group has a story it tells of the world, whether it's a political organization or a cult or a religion or, you know, You know, me and you are in the kind of same kind of cultural group. We believe roughly the same things. We have a shared reality.

We have a shared idea of who are the heroes, who are the villains, what are the good beliefs, what are the bad beliefs, what is status. You know, so me and you share a story and we share a story with most of your viewers and it's reassuring. You know, we see evidence for it everywhere. So that's kind of how all this is working. The brain isn't motivated to discover the truth.

We have a shared idea of who are the heroes, who are the villains, what are the good beliefs, what are the bad beliefs, what is status. You know, so me and you share a story and we share a story with most of your viewers and it's reassuring. You know, we see evidence for it everywhere. So that's kind of how all this is working. The brain isn't motivated to discover the truth.

We have a shared idea of who are the heroes, who are the villains, what are the good beliefs, what are the bad beliefs, what is status. You know, so me and you share a story and we share a story with most of your viewers and it's reassuring. You know, we see evidence for it everywhere. So that's kind of how all this is working. The brain isn't motivated to discover the truth.

The brain is motivated to make us want to collect with like-minded people and then state us from those people. And that means believing their stories. So is it right to say that story is the language of the brain then? Absolutely. That's exactly right. And as I write about in The Story's a Deal, the big idea that kind of made me excited about this book was this idea that

The brain is motivated to make us want to collect with like-minded people and then state us from those people. And that means believing their stories. So is it right to say that story is the language of the brain then? Absolutely. That's exactly right. And as I write about in The Story's a Deal, the big idea that kind of made me excited about this book was this idea that

The brain is motivated to make us want to collect with like-minded people and then state us from those people. And that means believing their stories. So is it right to say that story is the language of the brain then? Absolutely. That's exactly right. And as I write about in The Story's a Deal, the big idea that kind of made me excited about this book was this idea that

You know, what is story originally for? Well, story is what enables us to be these highly cooperative apes. You know, as you know, humans are an ape. We're one of five existing species of great ape. But we are a weird, obviously an unusual kind of ape. And that weirdness is that we are also a bit like ants in that we're highly collective. You know, other apes

You know, what is story originally for? Well, story is what enables us to be these highly cooperative apes. You know, as you know, humans are an ape. We're one of five existing species of great ape. But we are a weird, obviously an unusual kind of ape. And that weirdness is that we are also a bit like ants in that we're highly collective. You know, other apes

You know, what is story originally for? Well, story is what enables us to be these highly cooperative apes. You know, as you know, humans are an ape. We're one of five existing species of great ape. But we are a weird, obviously an unusual kind of ape. And that weirdness is that we are also a bit like ants in that we're highly collective. You know, other apes

overcome the obstacles of their existence individually they live in troops but they find food individually they they pursue goals individually you know broadly speaking but we don't humans are like ants that we we form into these super organisms these problem-solving super organisms in which every kind of individual human plays their part and that's how we're amazing that's how we've you know we've taken the best of the ape and the best of the ant and we've taken over the world

overcome the obstacles of their existence individually they live in troops but they find food individually they they pursue goals individually you know broadly speaking but we don't humans are like ants that we we form into these super organisms these problem-solving super organisms in which every kind of individual human plays their part and that's how we're amazing that's how we've you know we've taken the best of the ape and the best of the ant and we've taken over the world

overcome the obstacles of their existence individually they live in troops but they find food individually they they pursue goals individually you know broadly speaking but we don't humans are like ants that we we form into these super organisms these problem-solving super organisms in which every kind of individual human plays their part and that's how we're amazing that's how we've you know we've taken the best of the ape and the best of the ant and we've taken over the world