Lessons from an Optical Illusion: On Nature and Nurture, Knowledge and Values

Facts are facts, it is often said, but values are relative. However, every day situations occur where these simple distinctions begin to blur. Whether it is the roots of crime and violence, the measure of intelligence, the causes of disease or the threat and promise of genetic engineering, the question arises where do "facts" end and "values" begin? Recent developments in neuroscience have begun to shed light on this confusion, by radically revising existing notions of where human nature ends and human nurture begins. As Edward Hundert explains in this interdisciplinary work, the newly emerging model for the interactions of brain and environment has implications for the understanding of who we are, how we know and what we value. "Lesson from an Optical Illusion" is a modern recasting of the nature-nurture debate, informed by new insights from brain science, artificial intelligence, psychiatry, linguistics, evolutionary biology, child development, ethics and even cosmology. As this new synthesis unfolds, scientists ranging from Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud to Jean Piaget and Stephen Hawking are covered, along with topics such as simulated robots, optical illusions, game theory, the anthropic principle, the prisoner's dilemma and the language instinct. In the course of Hundert's wide-ranging exploration, the dichotomies that once made sense (objectivity-subjectivity, heredity-environment, fact-value) break down under analysis, as the text reveals the degree to which facts are social creations and values are woven into the fabric of the world.