Alison Gopnik: Caring for the vulnerable opens gateways to our deepest brain states

The psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik explains how the act of caring puts us in touch with our deepest humanity.
Watch more free videos on Aeon: aeon.co/videos
Read more about this video on Aeon: bit.ly/3fpAfXn
Subscribe to the Aeon Video newsletter: bit.ly/2MfCgqO
Follow us on Twitter: / aeonmag
Follow us on Facebook: / aeonmag
Follow us on Instagram: / aeonmag
Humans often fancy themselves quite extraordinary specimens in the animal kingdom. But while most recent research undermines our centuries-long claims of human exceptionalism, there are some ways in which we are quite unique - especially when it comes to childhood and childcare. Indeed, even when compared with our closest primate relatives, humans spend a truly inordinate amount of time - roughly 15 years at the beginning and the end of the lifespan - as vulnerable creatures, not reproducing, and largely dependent on others.
In this Aeon Original animation, Alison Gopnik, a writer and a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, examines how these unparalleled vulnerable periods are likely to be at least somewhat responsible for our smarts. Exploring how different brain states accompany different life stages, Gopnik also makes a case that caring for the vulnerable, rather than ivory-tower philosophising, puts us in touch with our deepest humanity.
Interviewer: Sally Davies (aeon.co/users/...)
Director: Léon Moh-Cah (leonmohcah.com/)
Producer: Kellen Quinn
Animators: Léon Moh-Cah, Matei Monoranu, Andi Concha
Sound design: Matt Part

[@TravelingPhilosopher]

Watching this was such a beautiful experience that it made me tear up. I remembered my childhood and my experiences looking at the world through the eyes of my younger senses.

[@EndySefa]

The animation and the narrator's voice match perfectly. Thanks for sharing this kind of contents.

[@slowfox_]

where do you guys procure this stuff from ? Cool vid

[@AeonVideo]

This animation is an Aeon original!

[@nakuljadhav138]

This is great video! Always in for such stuff.

[@annseidl208]

E was awesome ewe