Customer Reviews

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

With "new science" in the title, I was expecting more from this book. Although a few research studies are mentioned here and there this is more of a philosophical discussion resolving around an essentialist theory of pleasure than something based on scientific research. Whole sections consist of speculative discussions with no evidence to back them up. The author frequently cites works of fiction (e.g. Shakespeare) and passages from the bible to support his arguments. He also often resorts to hearsay with statements such as "some say that..." for support. The book also contains outdated information, for example that female estrus is hidden from males to promote pair bonding, which has since been dis-proven in laboratory tests that indicate that males can detect estrus. (Generally his presentation of conventional model of human sexuality and inequality is outdated. See Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality for more updated information.) The author also has an outdated human-centric view, suggesting that only humans have meta-representation and theory of mind, despite quite a bit of recent evidence to the contrary.

How Pleasure Works is a great book - it's entertaining and informative, and also surprising - as well as surprisingly funny. It examines different sources of pleasure - from food, to sex, to art, different forms of entertainment, and so on - and discusses recent findings in cognitive science (including a few of the author's own) that tell us about the surprisingly complex and sometimes deeply puzzling nature of human pleasure. The author argues that pleasure is not primarily a response to certain perceptual & sensory experiences, but instead has a significant cognitive component - what we think about something (whether or not we're correct) has a huge impact on how much pleasure we derive from it. The book contains many examples, which range from mildly surprising, to deeply puzzling, to just plain weird; some are very funny. The author has a fresh, engaging and easy style of writing, unlike what one finds in many science books for the lay public - this is enormously fun to read. Opening it up to any random page you'll almost certainly find yourself pulled in and getting caught up in the discussion - this book is hard to put down!

Interesting and well written from a philosophical point of view, but the title is very misleading. This book is more about something the author calls essentialism than pleasure. He does contend that pleasure is derived from this essentialism, but provides no scientific evidence to support that point. In fact the only science is this book amounts to a few scattered citings of psychological studies that happen buttress his philosophical arguments.

Are you into cannibalism, incest, and wearing Hitler's sweater? If so, this book is for you! Actually, if not, then this book is even more for you. Bloom asks why it is that things have the power to please or upset us beyond their objective properties. Hitler's sweater is the same as any other sweater--it isn't evil; it never did anything wrong. So, why would it be so creepy to pull it on? Would you rather be kissed by your favorite movie star or his or her identical twin? Most people of course want the movie star... but why? Somehow, the way we think about the person and the kiss is just as important as the way the person looks and the physical act. Bloom explores such examples through domains such as sex, art, family, and food.

"How Pleasure Works" is a great read. The author skillfully draws you in to each topic with examples like Hitler's sweater and then describes relevant research that sheds light on why we like what we like. Unlike many such books, he does not get bogged down in details of experiments. Neither does the author talk down to the reader: He is congenial but not overly jokey. The pages seem to turn themselves.

At the end, the reader comes away with a greater appreciation for how complex our likes and dislikes are. However, many of the best examples (like incest and cannibalism) focus on what we DON'T like. The book's success can perhaps best be summed up by the fact that even when you are being disgusted by such examples, you still get pleasure from reading about them.

'How Pleasure Works' exists somewhere between philosophy and science and doesn't do much for either. Philosophically we can learn more about 'essentialism' from Plato, and scientifically we can learn more about pleasure from many cognitive neuroscientists. I think that this kind of academic blather comes from too sequestered a life, from consorting only with other versions of oneself, from gazing too myopically at one's experimental subjects, and from publish or perish pressures. Very disappointing and a waste of time. This kind of "Oh, wow" New-Ageism is to the subject of pleasure what high fructose corn syrup is to food.

Here is a short list of words missing from the index: reinforcement, addiction, reward, dopamine, drugs.

Ok I know, this Review title is a cheap joke but given some of the content of this fabulous new book it does refer to some of the amazing ground that Bloom covers. Why do people do what they do for kicks? The answers are as bizarre as the behaviors Bloom addresses.

I am obviously a bit partisan having worked with Bloom in the past but How Pleasure Works is the perfect combination of intellectual stimulation and downright fun. This is because Bloom has the rare ability to make deep concepts accessible through vivid examples and his new book reflects this talent at his best.

There's some absolutely fascinating stuff on essentialism and his discussion of a concept you may not have encountered before "alief" is really thought provoking. The basic idea is that the pleasure preferences reflect mechanisms for simulating real and unreal worlds. In other worlds, imagination is at the root of what we find most pleasurable. But why not have the real thing? This is where the book makes some insightful conclusions that will surprise you.

So if you do not pleasure yourself by buying this book then imagine how empty your life will be without it.

A lot of ivy league professors are writing "cross-over" books for a general, but educated readership. But most of them are able to understand that doing so doesn't mean one has to write as if explaining things to total morons. This book is condescending and lacking any detail, nuance or rigor. It comes across as if he just churned out another book (with no original research, mind you) just to take a crack at some best-seller money. Moreover, the book doesn't even provide an answer for the question in the title or questions he raises in the text. So he is constantly posing interesting questions (e.g., Where, from his much-beloved biological point of view, do sexual fetishes come from? How does race play factor into "why we like what we like"?) Then he just forgets he ever posed it and talks about other matters that are more easily explained without considering how cultural/social reasons necessarily have to interact with the biological.) I bought this book because I wanted to learn about what new and interesting scholarship was being done in this field by scientists, and I assumed that because he was peddling it on NPR that it would be written for a reasonably intelligent audience. Instead, it was a lot of just-so stories about (mostly bad) experiments his friends and colleagues did, but written in a really cloying and coddling way, as if his readership cannot possibly hope to understand the important scientific "truths" he is handing down to them. The end result was that it was such a waste of time that when I finished it, I didn't donate it like usual. I actually threw it away so no one else would have to waste their time, either.

Why do we enjoy what we enjoy? Why does a bottle of Perrier seem to taste so much better than tap water, and why does that $200 bottle of wine seem to blow Two Buck Chuck out of the water? In both of these cases, the nature of the liquids inside the containers is not what makes the difference, but it is our beliefs about their invisible essences that shape our preferences and determine our enjoyment levels. In the author's own words: "What matters most is not the world as it appears to our senses. Rather, the enjoyment that we get from something derives from what we think that thing is." (p. xii)

This theory of pleasure centers upon the concept of essentialism--"the notion that things have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly and it is this hidden nature that really matters." (p. 9) As the author explains: "Our essentialism is not just a cold-blooded way of making sense of reality; it underlies our passions, our appetites, our desires." (p. 22) The book provides a fascinating tour of how our essentialist natures explain so much about what makes us buzz in delight...or cringe in disgust. It demystifies such curious oddities as to why we prefer bottled water (which often is just tap water, btw), why our beliefs about the artist and creative process determine how much we enjoy the artwork, why we value originals exponentially more than identical duplicates (would you shell out thousands for an identical knockoff Rolex?), why someone would pay $50,000 for a tape measure used by John F. Kennedy and be repulsed even at the thought of wearing a sweater owned by Hitler, and why we become so attached to our possessions. Essentialism also underlies the pleasure we get from transcending everyday reality via imagination, religion, and scientific inquiry. The book brilliantly lives up to its subtitle and illuminates "the new science of why we like what we like."

Appropriately and emphatically, I found _How Pleasure Works_ to be highly pleasurable. (Confession: I actually liked it so much that I read it twice.) At the end of the book, the author notes that "People are drawn to seek out the deeper essence of things; we are curious, and the payoff for learning more is a click of satisfaction" (p. 218) Infinite clicks of satisfaction is what this book is all about!

I'll keep this short and simple:

This book really forced me to think about how I put value into the things around me. So I had to ask "does x add value to my life?" "Why do I like x so much?" and so on. It gave me a really good perspective to begin shedding a lot of things that were dragging me down in my life. It really helped me at a time when I needed it.

Will everyone reach the same revelations? Probably not. But it's still a good read, well-written, and gives you a nice change of perspective on things around you.

I'm surprised at the negative reviews this book has received, such as being 'too philosophical'. The author cites numerous philosophers and the issue of pleasure is certainly a philosophical one, but he cites more science than philosophy and the philosophy he does cite is fairly basic and is used to help explain the science. I found this book extremely enjoyable to read and enjoyed the way he presented the information. For those who are interested in these subjects it doesn't necessarily contain much new information, but it is arranged and presented in ways which spur new thoughts and perspectives.
Often, when reading negative reviews about books I enjoy, I can at least see where those people are coming from, but with this book I have a hard time relating to the critics. This is a great book.