What do you think?
Rate this book
Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are: The Science of a Better You
A crisp and sparkling blend of cognitive science and human behavior that offers meaningful and attainable pathways towards becoming our best selves.
Why do we feel like in order to be productive, happy, or good, we must sacrifice everything else? Is it possible to feel all three at once? Without even knowing it, we’re doing things everyday to sabotage ourselves and our societies, habits that prevent us from optimizing long term happiness. Where most books imagine solutions that, when enacted, fail to fundamentally improve our lives, Jim Davies grounds his research in cognitive science to show you not only what works, but how much it works.
Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are shows us how we can use science to become our best selves, using resources we already have within our own brains.
Davies' book challenges and inspires us to approach the big picture while also staying mindful of the everyday details in real life. Davies proves why multitasking is bad for you, when a little un mindfulness can be good for you, how to best justify which charities to donate to, and how to hack your brain.
The most surprising truth Davies offers us spreads across these pages like you too can lead an optimally good life, not through uprooting your life from the ground up, but from adapting your mentality to your given present. A better life doesn’t need to look like a massive change—like our beloved dogs who already view us as our best selves, it’s already much closer than you think.
Why do we feel like in order to be productive, happy, or good, we must sacrifice everything else? Is it possible to feel all three at once? Without even knowing it, we’re doing things everyday to sabotage ourselves and our societies, habits that prevent us from optimizing long term happiness. Where most books imagine solutions that, when enacted, fail to fundamentally improve our lives, Jim Davies grounds his research in cognitive science to show you not only what works, but how much it works.
Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are shows us how we can use science to become our best selves, using resources we already have within our own brains.
Davies' book challenges and inspires us to approach the big picture while also staying mindful of the everyday details in real life. Davies proves why multitasking is bad for you, when a little un mindfulness can be good for you, how to best justify which charities to donate to, and how to hack your brain.
The most surprising truth Davies offers us spreads across these pages like you too can lead an optimally good life, not through uprooting your life from the ground up, but from adapting your mentality to your given present. A better life doesn’t need to look like a massive change—like our beloved dogs who already view us as our best selves, it’s already much closer than you think.
- GenresNonfiction
336 pages, Hardcover
Published February 2, 2021
28 people are currently reading
207 people want to read
About the author
Jim Davies
3 books34 followersJim Davies is a professor in the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University. Director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory, he explores processes of visualization in humans and machines and specializes in artificial intelligence, analogy, problem-solving, and the psychology of art, religion, and creativity. His work has shown how people use visual thinking to solve problems, and how they visualize imagined situations and worlds.
In his spare time, he is a published poet, an internationally-produced playwright, and a professional painter, calligrapher, and swing dancer.
In his spare time, he is a published poet, an internationally-produced playwright, and a professional painter, calligrapher, and swing dancer.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 1, 2023
couldn’t stop thinking of Jim Davies writing it while I was reading. Kind of like atomic habits except not as good?
July 28, 2023
Proof that utilitarians make poor ethicists.
This book markets itself as a blend of self-help, grounded with cognitive science. The first 100-200 pages or so deliver on that promise, explaining in part how we as a species feel rewarded and motivated, even when we think we won't. It's not going to reinvent your life, but it's interesting enough pop-psychology.
The latter third of the book devote itself to different questions - the cognitive science fades away and Davies' utilitarianism surges to the forefront in a frankly bizarre way. It's kind of bonkers how much this book made me think about a branch of philosophy that I haven't thought of since university. It's not like I go around cursing Jeremy Bentham's name every day. I had no strong stance on utilitarians before this book.
Davies's back-half digression into philosophy is justified under the auspices that our dog wants us to do good in the world as well. This already threadbare throughline (just pick a different title, man) falls apart as Davies asks questions about what it means to do good in the world. He begins to look at goodness in the most macro sense possible - discussions are had as to how disabilities might be quantified, or how we might best compare a pig's suffering to that of a human's. You see, this kind of arithmetic is both wholly hypothetical in Davies's worldview (this book is filled with endless thought experiments), but also the founding base for his philosophy on how to be a good person, which (spoiler alert!) largely boils down to donating money to charities that are reasonably transparent and spend their funds well.
As an example, let's use Davies's treatment on animals. This occupies one of the longest chapters of the book, and considering I've actually studied animal ethics, I feel reasonably prepared to engage with it. In this section, Davies concludes that animals live quite poor lives, especially factory farmed animals. He suggests that a pig's life is perhaps not as bad as the life a cow leads, because his suffering quotient (pulled from scans of the animals' brains) determines that the complex emotions experienced by a pig, which is an animal as smart as a dog, do not quite compare to the complex emotions experienced by a cow, which is a few decimal points higher. This allows him to come to the conclusion that it is perhaps more ethical to eat pork than beef, and chicken than pork.
I'll gloss over much of Davies's elision of farm conditions (he compares sow crates to "airplane seats", as if that's the only thing wrong with them), where he suggests a farmed animal is pretty much better off than a wild animal in all conditions, because at least it has shelter and food and regulated temperature. He further tries to break down what percentage of a living being's life is spent dying (assuming ten seconds of pain), but does not consider what percentage of a farmed animal's life is spent suffering. At least the veal calf torn from its mother with atrophying muscles was well fed!
Towards the end, Davies admits that he tried vegetarianism, but lacked the willpower to continue. He pulls some statistics on how this is common for vegetarians, and then says that donating $600 a year to animal-rights charities is equivalent to saving the number of animals you kill in a year, so it's kind of a wash. Like carbon offsetting for death.
I would say I don't mean to harp on this, but that would be a lie. The "Animals" section exposes the farce behind his morality. Anything goes as long as the math checks out and the scales are balanced. Davies's utilitarian philosophy doesn't have the capacity to imagine a better world -- it can't imagine questions like "Do we have the right to treat animals the way we do?", because that can't be answered with math. It can't imagine a better world. It just wants to optimize a shitty one. It would be so much less annoying if he just said he didn't want to give up bacon like a normal person does, instead of hiding behind nonsense equivocations like "reduceitarian."
As a final example of how utterly annoying this philosophy is, there's an extended section where Davies speaks about theatre and blindness. Paraphrasing here: he asks the question (again using his disability scale) where, if you can prevent blindness abroad by donating X amount of dollars to a given charity, but you also wish to put some money into producing a play, then you must have drawn a line in some abstract sense where spending X amount of dollars on a play was worth the money that did not go to charity; effectively, you decided how many people's vision this play was worth. What an utterly exhausting way to live.
All the decisions in our lives can be measured in good or bad. I spent money today on pad thai. I ordered vegan pad thai, so perhaps I saved a chicken's life. But the tofu was fried in the same oil, so perhaps I'm at least partly responsible for that demand. I drove my car to get there. I spent $15 on it, which I didn't donate to charity.
Our lives are moral impossibilities. I know my vegan diet isn't going to save the world or save any animals I've ever met. I know (as Davies points out) animals are killed in threshers and through deforestation and other ways to support my diet. But ethics aren't just math - they are the ways we choose to conduct our lives, the questions we ask, and the choices we make. Right and wrong are more than just numbers, but since Davies likes them so much, here's a few:
% of this book that can reasonably be considered about cognitive science: 62.8%
% of my day spent writing this review: 2.8%
% of my life (assuming an 80-year lifespan) spent on this crappy book: 0.000784%
This book markets itself as a blend of self-help, grounded with cognitive science. The first 100-200 pages or so deliver on that promise, explaining in part how we as a species feel rewarded and motivated, even when we think we won't. It's not going to reinvent your life, but it's interesting enough pop-psychology.
The latter third of the book devote itself to different questions - the cognitive science fades away and Davies' utilitarianism surges to the forefront in a frankly bizarre way. It's kind of bonkers how much this book made me think about a branch of philosophy that I haven't thought of since university. It's not like I go around cursing Jeremy Bentham's name every day. I had no strong stance on utilitarians before this book.
Davies's back-half digression into philosophy is justified under the auspices that our dog wants us to do good in the world as well. This already threadbare throughline (just pick a different title, man) falls apart as Davies asks questions about what it means to do good in the world. He begins to look at goodness in the most macro sense possible - discussions are had as to how disabilities might be quantified, or how we might best compare a pig's suffering to that of a human's. You see, this kind of arithmetic is both wholly hypothetical in Davies's worldview (this book is filled with endless thought experiments), but also the founding base for his philosophy on how to be a good person, which (spoiler alert!) largely boils down to donating money to charities that are reasonably transparent and spend their funds well.
As an example, let's use Davies's treatment on animals. This occupies one of the longest chapters of the book, and considering I've actually studied animal ethics, I feel reasonably prepared to engage with it. In this section, Davies concludes that animals live quite poor lives, especially factory farmed animals. He suggests that a pig's life is perhaps not as bad as the life a cow leads, because his suffering quotient (pulled from scans of the animals' brains) determines that the complex emotions experienced by a pig, which is an animal as smart as a dog, do not quite compare to the complex emotions experienced by a cow, which is a few decimal points higher. This allows him to come to the conclusion that it is perhaps more ethical to eat pork than beef, and chicken than pork.
I'll gloss over much of Davies's elision of farm conditions (he compares sow crates to "airplane seats", as if that's the only thing wrong with them), where he suggests a farmed animal is pretty much better off than a wild animal in all conditions, because at least it has shelter and food and regulated temperature. He further tries to break down what percentage of a living being's life is spent dying (assuming ten seconds of pain), but does not consider what percentage of a farmed animal's life is spent suffering. At least the veal calf torn from its mother with atrophying muscles was well fed!
Towards the end, Davies admits that he tried vegetarianism, but lacked the willpower to continue. He pulls some statistics on how this is common for vegetarians, and then says that donating $600 a year to animal-rights charities is equivalent to saving the number of animals you kill in a year, so it's kind of a wash. Like carbon offsetting for death.
I would say I don't mean to harp on this, but that would be a lie. The "Animals" section exposes the farce behind his morality. Anything goes as long as the math checks out and the scales are balanced. Davies's utilitarian philosophy doesn't have the capacity to imagine a better world -- it can't imagine questions like "Do we have the right to treat animals the way we do?", because that can't be answered with math. It can't imagine a better world. It just wants to optimize a shitty one. It would be so much less annoying if he just said he didn't want to give up bacon like a normal person does, instead of hiding behind nonsense equivocations like "reduceitarian."
As a final example of how utterly annoying this philosophy is, there's an extended section where Davies speaks about theatre and blindness. Paraphrasing here: he asks the question (again using his disability scale) where, if you can prevent blindness abroad by donating X amount of dollars to a given charity, but you also wish to put some money into producing a play, then you must have drawn a line in some abstract sense where spending X amount of dollars on a play was worth the money that did not go to charity; effectively, you decided how many people's vision this play was worth. What an utterly exhausting way to live.
All the decisions in our lives can be measured in good or bad. I spent money today on pad thai. I ordered vegan pad thai, so perhaps I saved a chicken's life. But the tofu was fried in the same oil, so perhaps I'm at least partly responsible for that demand. I drove my car to get there. I spent $15 on it, which I didn't donate to charity.
Our lives are moral impossibilities. I know my vegan diet isn't going to save the world or save any animals I've ever met. I know (as Davies points out) animals are killed in threshers and through deforestation and other ways to support my diet. But ethics aren't just math - they are the ways we choose to conduct our lives, the questions we ask, and the choices we make. Right and wrong are more than just numbers, but since Davies likes them so much, here's a few:
% of this book that can reasonably be considered about cognitive science: 62.8%
% of my day spent writing this review: 2.8%
% of my life (assuming an 80-year lifespan) spent on this crappy book: 0.000784%
Read
April 15, 2023read for my cog sci assignment🥸
April 12, 2021
OK, first of all, this has NOTHING to do with your dog, or pet ownership. (I just grabbed this on a whim at the library, not really knowing what to expect). Second of all - there is a LOT to digest in this one, quite of bit that is very difficult to accept, and frankly presents a lot of conclusions that most people will find hard to accept. (Side note - I felt a lot like I was in danger of becoming Chide Anagonye from "The Good Place" the more I read this book.)
The first half of the book is wonderful, all about personal happiness and productivity. It covers a lot of familiar ground, but did give me several good ideas and reinforced a lot of other things I feel I do already. Then in Part 2 - "It's Not About You", the book launches into morals, ethics, and behavior in trying to determine the absolute "right" way to live a life. Davies does this by presenting a series of challenging and downright uncomfortable thought experiments and situations. There were several times I was ready to abandon the book, but each time the author would bring me back by acknowledging the unpopular, if not downright controversial, nature of many of his views and findings.
I think the biggest problem (and at the same time most ambitious) part of the book is the author's attempt to assign numerical, often monetary, values to ethical choices and dilemmas in the attempt to "scientifically" determine the absolute "best" human you can be, and (more to the point), the best way you can spend and/or donate your money to better the world.
Ultimately, this book became yet another manifesto in the "Effective Altruism" movement...not that I feel that is a bad thing. (Several of the examples and situations in this book came right out of "Doing Good Better" - but I think both had the same source in Peter Singer's "The Most Good You Can Do", which is given credit).
This is a lot of criticism for a book I've given 5-stars, but I can't think of many books that have left me thinking and pondering as much as this one.
The first half of the book is wonderful, all about personal happiness and productivity. It covers a lot of familiar ground, but did give me several good ideas and reinforced a lot of other things I feel I do already. Then in Part 2 - "It's Not About You", the book launches into morals, ethics, and behavior in trying to determine the absolute "right" way to live a life. Davies does this by presenting a series of challenging and downright uncomfortable thought experiments and situations. There were several times I was ready to abandon the book, but each time the author would bring me back by acknowledging the unpopular, if not downright controversial, nature of many of his views and findings.
I think the biggest problem (and at the same time most ambitious) part of the book is the author's attempt to assign numerical, often monetary, values to ethical choices and dilemmas in the attempt to "scientifically" determine the absolute "best" human you can be, and (more to the point), the best way you can spend and/or donate your money to better the world.
Ultimately, this book became yet another manifesto in the "Effective Altruism" movement...not that I feel that is a bad thing. (Several of the examples and situations in this book came right out of "Doing Good Better" - but I think both had the same source in Peter Singer's "The Most Good You Can Do", which is given credit).
This is a lot of criticism for a book I've given 5-stars, but I can't think of many books that have left me thinking and pondering as much as this one.
July 5, 2021
This book has an unfortunate title. It is a shame that cat-lovers and non-dog owners might be put off from reading it!
This book actually summarizes a lot of scientific research on how to be the best person you can be making the greatest impact on the world.
If you love thought experiments, the second half of the book will stretch and challenge your mind with ethical/moral questions.
Highly recommended!
This book actually summarizes a lot of scientific research on how to be the best person you can be making the greatest impact on the world.
If you love thought experiments, the second half of the book will stretch and challenge your mind with ethical/moral questions.
Highly recommended!
February 21, 2021
I’m married to the author, but this is his best book yet! He gives great advice to boost productivity and be your best ethical person supported by cutting edge research. Full of practical advice and sensical approaches to giving to charity and thinking about animal rights , his book is a refreshing guide to being your best self and optimizing your impact on the world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews