I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts. - Richard Feynman
“A magician never reveals his secrets.” Why? Because when a magician shows you how they do a trick, it removes all elements of “awe”—it is no longer magic. The vast majority of people when they experience magic don’t become obsessed with determining how the trick was done. Sure, they may ask “how did you do that?” and should you refrain from telling them, they may spend the ride home thinking about it, but in the end they get over it. Why? I believe it is because most people don’t mind living with this bit of illusion. It’s entertaining, and they know that if they understood how the trick was done it would lose some of this entertainment value.
Similarly, people extend this same mindset to the analysis of humanity and culture. I think people fear that if they dig too deep, it will lose its “magic-ness”… but they’re wrong. This is the beginning of understanding the inherent and persistent dualism between what you think and what you feel.
Here’s what I mean by that: your intellectual understanding of something and your emotional experience of it operate on different tracks. They’re related, sure, but they’re not the same thing. You can think “I know this sunset is just refracted light through atmospheric particles” while simultaneously feeling awe at its beauty. You can think “I know my brain is releasing oxytocin when I hug my kid” while simultaneously feeling overwhelming love. The thinking doesn’t cancel out the feeling.
Understanding humanity and culture is not the same as most magic tricks because even when the trick is revealed, it still works on you. When you learn how a card trick is done, the illusion breaks—you see the sleight of hand, and the magic disappears. But when you learn how human emotions work, the emotions don’t disappear. You still feel them, often just as intensely. And here’s the thing: once you understand how magic tricks work, many people find themselves appreciating the complexity necessary to fool them. The trick becomes a work of art, a highly detailed painting in which beauty emerges from the product of effort and complexity. The same is true for understanding human nature—the complexity doesn’t diminish the wonder, it adds to it.
We know this because people spend their lives studying humans and culture (think PhD psychologists or anthropologists) and yet most of these people still want families, enjoy socializing, cry at the death of a loved one, etc. The evolutionary psychologist who studies attachment theory doesn’t feel less attachment to their own children. The neuroscientist who understands the biochemistry of love doesn’t fall in love any less deeply. The anthropologist who studies grief rituals across cultures doesn’t grieve any less when someone they love dies.
Just because they understand why we want to procreate, socialize, or protect our loved ones does not prevent them from actually feeling these things. If anything, understanding can make the experience richer—not because the feelings themselves are different, but because you can appreciate both layers simultaneously. You can feel the emotion and recognize the intricate evolutionary and neurological machinery that produces it. Sure, they may be better equipped to contextualize these emotions, to understand them in a broader framework, but it doesn’t mean they are absent of them.
Okay, so you’re willing to open yourself up to maybe some uncomfortable ideas? Amazing.
You’re a monkey
More specificaly, you’re a monkey in shoes. Also probably some clothes. Likely a house, maybe a car, and probably a smartphone. But you’re still a monkey.
Dont think so? Your DNA is 99% the same as a Chimpanzee or Bonobo.
When two things are 99% similar, you basically consider them the same thing. But in this case, we humans dont tend to think of ourselves the same as a monkey. Those monkeys feel so primitive and unsophisticated, so “lesser than” intellectually.
Yah, well, the numbers dont lie. Time to face the facts and realize that if you want to understand yourself, you better start understanding those damn monkeys.
Remember, just because you understand something doesn’t mean the magic will go away.
Does knowing that your hunger is an evolutionary adaptation to keep you from starving make you less hungry? Does understanding that sexual attraction evolved to encourage reproduction make you less attracted to someone? Of course not. The mechanism doesn’t diminish the experience.
Think about it: you can know that fear is an amygdala response to perceived threats, triggered by cortisol and adrenaline flooding your system, and you’ll still feel terrified when you’re standing at the edge of a cliff. You can understand that laughter is a social bonding mechanism that releases endorphins, and it doesn’t make comedy any less funny. You can know that grief is your brain’s way of processing the loss of an attachment figure, and it won’t make you cry any less at a funeral.
The knowledge sits in one part of your brain—the analytical, rational part. The feeling sits somewhere else entirely, in the ancient machinery that’s been running long before you had language to describe it. Understanding bridges these two, but it doesn’t erase either one. If anything, it gives you a clearer view of just how intricate and remarkable the whole system is.
I know this is uncomfortable. It’s a magic trick that many prefer not to know how it works because in this case it’s not just entertainment value at stake, it’s their life’s value. I get it. But what’s in it for you if you let your guard down? Well, it’s my belief that understanding the complex underlying motivations of yourself and the people around you can leave you more content with your current life, better able to empathize with others, and more equipped to pursue the life you want.