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Language and Human Nature Tetralogy #2
How the Mind Works
In this extraordinary bestseller, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists, does for the rest of the mind what he did for language in his 1994 book, The Language Instinct. He explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life. And he does it with the wit that prompted Mark Ridley to write in the New York Times Book Review, "No other science writer makes me laugh so much. . . . [Pinker] deserves the superlatives that are lavished on him." The arguments in the book are as bold as its title. Pinker rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection, and challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year and Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1997 Featured in Time magazine, the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Nature, Science, Lingua Franca, and Science Times Front-page reviews in the Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe Book Section, and the San Diego Union Book Review
660 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Steven Pinker
63 books9,938 followersSteven Arthur Pinker is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging explorations of human nature and its relevance to language, history, morality, politics, and everyday life. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, and is the author of numerous books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and most recently, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
He was born in Canada and graduated from Montreal's Dawson College in 1973. He received a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from McGill University in 1976, and then went on to earn his doctorate in the same discipline at Harvard in 1979. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, then became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. (Except for a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995-6.) As of 2008, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard.
Pinker was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and one of Prospect and Foreign Policy's 100 top public intellectuals in 2005. He has also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Surrey, Tel Aviv, McGill, and the University of Tromsø, Norway. He was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1998 and in 2003. In January 2005, Pinker defended Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, whose comments about the gender gap in mathematics and science angered much of the faculty. On May 13th 2006, Pinker received the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year award for his contributions to public understanding of human evolution.
In 2007, he was invited on The Colbert Report and asked under pressure to sum up how the brain works in five words – Pinker answered "Brain cells fire in patterns."
Pinker was born into the English-speaking Jewish community of Montreal. He has said, "I was never religious in the theological sense... I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew." As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest following a police strike in 1969. His father, a trained lawyer, first worked as a traveling salesman, while his mother was first a home-maker then a guidance counselor and high-school vice-principal. He has two younger siblings. His brother is a policy analyst for the Canadian government. His sister, Susan Pinker, is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the author of The Sexual Paradox and The Village Effect.
Pinker married Nancy Etcoff in 1980 and they divorced 1992; he married Ilavenil Subbiah in 1995 and they too divorced. He is married to the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, the author of 10 books and winner of the National Medal of the Humanities. He has no children.
His next book will take off from his research on "common knowledge" (knowing that everyone knows something). Its tentative title is: Don't Go There: Common Knowledge and the Science of Civility, Hypocrisy, Outrage, and Taboo.
He was born in Canada and graduated from Montreal's Dawson College in 1973. He received a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from McGill University in 1976, and then went on to earn his doctorate in the same discipline at Harvard in 1979. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, then became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. (Except for a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995-6.) As of 2008, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard.
Pinker was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and one of Prospect and Foreign Policy's 100 top public intellectuals in 2005. He has also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Surrey, Tel Aviv, McGill, and the University of Tromsø, Norway. He was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1998 and in 2003. In January 2005, Pinker defended Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, whose comments about the gender gap in mathematics and science angered much of the faculty. On May 13th 2006, Pinker received the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year award for his contributions to public understanding of human evolution.
In 2007, he was invited on The Colbert Report and asked under pressure to sum up how the brain works in five words – Pinker answered "Brain cells fire in patterns."
Pinker was born into the English-speaking Jewish community of Montreal. He has said, "I was never religious in the theological sense... I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew." As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest following a police strike in 1969. His father, a trained lawyer, first worked as a traveling salesman, while his mother was first a home-maker then a guidance counselor and high-school vice-principal. He has two younger siblings. His brother is a policy analyst for the Canadian government. His sister, Susan Pinker, is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the author of The Sexual Paradox and The Village Effect.
Pinker married Nancy Etcoff in 1980 and they divorced 1992; he married Ilavenil Subbiah in 1995 and they too divorced. He is married to the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, the author of 10 books and winner of the National Medal of the Humanities. He has no children.
His next book will take off from his research on "common knowledge" (knowing that everyone knows something). Its tentative title is: Don't Go There: Common Knowledge and the Science of Civility, Hypocrisy, Outrage, and Taboo.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 674 reviews
April 14, 2014
This morning while swimming I thought of this book. And I thought also of a conversation I had recently with a friend. We were talking about human consciousness.
Swimming is a perfect thing to do when thinking about consciousness. While sliding along the water we are deprived of many things, in particular of the full powers of our senses. There is very little to hear; smellandtaste are also kept at bay; what we can look at is reduced to a wall and a straight line on the floor of the pool; and the pleasant and refreshing water assuages our touch. So, even if we stop being ourselves since we are not in our natural medium, we can however only be ourselves.
Consciousness runs galore.
I actually read this book a while ago, and I did so also some time after I interrupted my studies in neurobiology. I had to stop because of personal reasons. But I remember two things clearly about this book.
The first is that It was an excellent summary of what was known about the brain when the book was published, and which I had been studying in more detailed textbooks. Alas, I have not kept with further advances, but my guess is that it is still a very relevant read today.
The study is very well structured as a survey of the various considerations on how the mind works, and it is written in a very engaging style. It is also engaging because it addresses our immediate and commonsensical concerns about how our mind works. Why we forget, how do we recognize faces, what falling in love may entail, what it is to laugh.. etc.
The best part was the chapter on vision, may be because to me that is one of the most magical powers of our brain. How it can process what our light detecting organs perceive, and create vision in its rear part is a phenomenon that defies our senses.
Pinker does not deal with language in this book because he devoted another book, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Languagewhich I have not read yet. He designed them to complement each other.
The second thing I remember is the conclusion.
After examining scientifically the various abilities of the brain, Pinker finally gets to the idea of Consciousness, the most perplexing aspect of the brain. But then he gives up and admits that our human capacities are unable to understand how consciousness has come to be, nor what it is. He proposes that probably only an entity with higher abilities than those of our brain would be able to look down upon human Consciousness and understand what it is (does he mean a god, or a machine, or martians?).
Of course, so far he is completely right. No one has, as yet, been able to explain Consciousness satisfactorily, and it has been approached from a myriad of fields. Is Consciousness created or has it evolved?. Is it only in our bodies, and therefore mortal, or can it transmigrate?. What is it anyway?
So, the missing star is not because of what Pinker has written in this book but for its title. He does not really explain, fully, what he promises: how our mind works.
In any case, I am going swimming tomorrow again, and my Consciousness is delighted with the idea, even if it does not know what it-self is.
May 27, 2015
The book does not lack good qualities, but I generally dislike the technique of argumentation that is too often characterized by poor proof backed by a certain arrogance towards alternative explanations. The chapter on the sexes is particularly shoddily presented. The "proof" that Pinker refers to when trying to back his claims that (simply put) evolution and innateness alone explain the differences between the sexes when it comes to attitudes to sex (the male hunter/gatherer has logically a greater chance of spreading his genes since he doesn't have to carry the baby for nine months, and so on) is based on polls filled out by university students. That these students are also caught up in a social reality doesn't seem to have crossed Pinker's mind.
Good scholars know where to draw the boundaries between science and speculation. Chomsky has said that one can learn more about human nature from reading a novel than from scientific psychology. In other words, he knows that his scientific field is limited to a certain aspect of human nature and language, and thus doesn't try to explain more than can be deducted by reasoning from the facts presented. (One can have opinions as to how successful Chomskyan linguistic science actually is, but that's another matter.) Certainly, Pinker is allowed to speculate, as is any scientist. The problem is that Pinker's speculations are sometimes presented as truths. Therefore, this book does, despite some interesting facts being presented in it, leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
Good scholars know where to draw the boundaries between science and speculation. Chomsky has said that one can learn more about human nature from reading a novel than from scientific psychology. In other words, he knows that his scientific field is limited to a certain aspect of human nature and language, and thus doesn't try to explain more than can be deducted by reasoning from the facts presented. (One can have opinions as to how successful Chomskyan linguistic science actually is, but that's another matter.) Certainly, Pinker is allowed to speculate, as is any scientist. The problem is that Pinker's speculations are sometimes presented as truths. Therefore, this book does, despite some interesting facts being presented in it, leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
April 7, 2017
I started this, listened to 3.5 hours of the audiobook’s total of 26 and simply couldn’t imagine continuing. The first chapter (2.5 hours), which the author calls an “opening brief”, can in simple terms be seen as an introduction. This introduction was not concise; it was rambling and consisted of mundane generalizations. It did not clarify how the book would be organized nor in precise terms what the author wished to show. Nothing enticed me to continue.
To better understand the field of cognitive science I am looking for a book based on solid scientific backing, not one based on speculation. I want at least a modicum of solid proof for what is being claimed, and I found not one smidgeon of that here.
There was an excessive amount of criticism of other scientists’ views while at the same time the author’s own views were not made clear.
I disliked the manner in which the author gave an enormous number of examples which supposedly were meant to prove the generalizations made. Many examples proved nothing. They referred to movie figures, characters in fiction, objects we use in our daily life and further generalizations about human behavior. The list of examples drowned out the statement that was to be proven.
Even in the first introductory chapter there were statements made the validity of which can be debated. We are told that humans today no longer worry about robots / computer programs being made that function better than man. That is not true! In the news recently was a debate about the inequitable use of artificial intelligence programs.
So I finished the unwieldy, long-winded, empty first introductory chapter and moved on to the second. Before quitting the book I wanted to check if perhaps the style of writing altered. It did not.
The narration by Mel Foster started off too fast, but I got used to it. At one point I set the speed down to 75%, and that was too slow! Sentences become distorted. In a book such as this a listener needs time to consider what is being said so they can themselves evaluate what they are being told.
The rambling, chatty writing style, the multitude of generalizations and the lack of both conclusive evidence and scientific backing are not what I am looking for. If I do not want to read a book, this says clearly that I did not like that which I read. I am giving this one star.
To better understand the field of cognitive science I am looking for a book based on solid scientific backing, not one based on speculation. I want at least a modicum of solid proof for what is being claimed, and I found not one smidgeon of that here.
There was an excessive amount of criticism of other scientists’ views while at the same time the author’s own views were not made clear.
I disliked the manner in which the author gave an enormous number of examples which supposedly were meant to prove the generalizations made. Many examples proved nothing. They referred to movie figures, characters in fiction, objects we use in our daily life and further generalizations about human behavior. The list of examples drowned out the statement that was to be proven.
Even in the first introductory chapter there were statements made the validity of which can be debated. We are told that humans today no longer worry about robots / computer programs being made that function better than man. That is not true! In the news recently was a debate about the inequitable use of artificial intelligence programs.
So I finished the unwieldy, long-winded, empty first introductory chapter and moved on to the second. Before quitting the book I wanted to check if perhaps the style of writing altered. It did not.
The narration by Mel Foster started off too fast, but I got used to it. At one point I set the speed down to 75%, and that was too slow! Sentences become distorted. In a book such as this a listener needs time to consider what is being said so they can themselves evaluate what they are being told.
The rambling, chatty writing style, the multitude of generalizations and the lack of both conclusive evidence and scientific backing are not what I am looking for. If I do not want to read a book, this says clearly that I did not like that which I read. I am giving this one star.
December 30, 2010
This is a truly comprehensive treatment of the human mind. Pinker delves deeply into the reasons why the mind has evolved to make decisions in the way it does. There is very little discussion about the biology of the brain; the book points out that a good understanding of the origins of human behavior requires descriptions at a higher level--at the level of the mind, and how it evolved through natural selection. Pinker shows how natural selection has worked its way into every nook and cranny of the mind ... absolutely fascinating. Every chapter goes into great detail about how our belief system developed, our vision, our reasoning abilities, our family structures, and our emotions. Pinker describes how our minds are similar to computers and neural networks, and how they are different. I've read other books by Pinker, and they are all great. Highly recommended to every human with a mind!
May 16, 2009
I think this a great way of addressing a widespread misunderstanding about genetics, biological evolution and human thought & behavior.
Slight background story: I was having a discussion with a guy on goodreads.com within his comments on his review of Why I Am Not A Muslim and eventually it came to this:
Myself: "It’s a categorical mistake to think this about biological evolution. To put it bluntly: our genes are selfish, but we are not (not necessarily, unconditionally so at least)."
Him: "One last question, so how are we different than our genes?"
And my reply and the whole point of this post:
This may sound mean, but it’s simple. You are not a gene, nor am I. We’re animals, unique and beautiful and ugly and all qualities in between, both as a species and as individuals.
Here’s an explanation though:
"But almost everyone misunderstands this theory. Contrary to popular belief, the gene-centered theory of evolution does not imply that the point of all human striving is to spread our genes. With the exception of the fertility doctor who artificially inseminated patients with his own semen, the donor to the sperm bank for Nobel Prize winners, and other kooks, no human being (or animal) strives to spread his or her genes. Dawkins explained the theory in a book called The Selfish Gene, and the metaphor was chosen carefully. People don’t selfishly spread their genes, genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains. By making us enjoy life, health, sex, friends, and children, the gene buys a lottery ticket for representation in the next generation, with odds that were favorable in the environment in which we evolved. Our goals are subgoals of the ultimate goal of the genes, replicating themselves. But the two are different. As far as we are concerned, our goals, conscious or unconscious, are not about genes at all, but about health and lovers and children and friends."
That seems to be enough to get the point across, but I think this is such a good point that I’ll type the next paragraph up as well:
"The confusion between our goals and genes’ goals has spawned one muddle after another. A reviewer of a book about the evolution of sexuality protests that human adultery, unlike the animal equivalent, cannot be a strategy to spread genes because adulteres take steps to prevent pregancy. But whose strategy are we talking about? Sexual desire is not people’s strategy to progagate their genes. It’s people’s strategy to attain the pleasures of sex, and the pleasures of sex are the genes strategy to propagate themselves. If the genes don’t get propagated, it’s because we are smarter than they are. A book on the emotional life of animals complains that if altruism according to biologists is just helping kin or exchanging favors, both of which serve the interests of one’s genes, it would not really be altruism after all, but some kind of hypocrisy. This too is a mix up. Just as blueprints don’t necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don’t necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play with in a play, not the interior monologue of the players."
-Steven Pinker, How The Mind Works, pp. 43-44
Also, for anyone interested in listening to the audiobook version:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...
The reader sounds like one of those prototypical 1950's or 60's educational film narrators. It works pretty well.
Slight background story: I was having a discussion with a guy on goodreads.com within his comments on his review of Why I Am Not A Muslim and eventually it came to this:
Myself: "It’s a categorical mistake to think this about biological evolution. To put it bluntly: our genes are selfish, but we are not (not necessarily, unconditionally so at least)."
Him: "One last question, so how are we different than our genes?"
And my reply and the whole point of this post:
This may sound mean, but it’s simple. You are not a gene, nor am I. We’re animals, unique and beautiful and ugly and all qualities in between, both as a species and as individuals.
Here’s an explanation though:
"But almost everyone misunderstands this theory. Contrary to popular belief, the gene-centered theory of evolution does not imply that the point of all human striving is to spread our genes. With the exception of the fertility doctor who artificially inseminated patients with his own semen, the donor to the sperm bank for Nobel Prize winners, and other kooks, no human being (or animal) strives to spread his or her genes. Dawkins explained the theory in a book called The Selfish Gene, and the metaphor was chosen carefully. People don’t selfishly spread their genes, genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains. By making us enjoy life, health, sex, friends, and children, the gene buys a lottery ticket for representation in the next generation, with odds that were favorable in the environment in which we evolved. Our goals are subgoals of the ultimate goal of the genes, replicating themselves. But the two are different. As far as we are concerned, our goals, conscious or unconscious, are not about genes at all, but about health and lovers and children and friends."
That seems to be enough to get the point across, but I think this is such a good point that I’ll type the next paragraph up as well:
"The confusion between our goals and genes’ goals has spawned one muddle after another. A reviewer of a book about the evolution of sexuality protests that human adultery, unlike the animal equivalent, cannot be a strategy to spread genes because adulteres take steps to prevent pregancy. But whose strategy are we talking about? Sexual desire is not people’s strategy to progagate their genes. It’s people’s strategy to attain the pleasures of sex, and the pleasures of sex are the genes strategy to propagate themselves. If the genes don’t get propagated, it’s because we are smarter than they are. A book on the emotional life of animals complains that if altruism according to biologists is just helping kin or exchanging favors, both of which serve the interests of one’s genes, it would not really be altruism after all, but some kind of hypocrisy. This too is a mix up. Just as blueprints don’t necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don’t necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play with in a play, not the interior monologue of the players."
-Steven Pinker, How The Mind Works, pp. 43-44
Also, for anyone interested in listening to the audiobook version:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...
The reader sounds like one of those prototypical 1950's or 60's educational film narrators. It works pretty well.
April 22, 2017
This book was an amazing read!
I cannot get around the fact that it was written by one person, let alone one person with a lot of other books on the same topic, and yet more provocative each time.
I loved the detailed and comprehensive outlook on each subject matter.
It is not a textbook, It is a long essay that gives you a rational, up-to-date, coherent, general yet accurate, A frame for thinking about mind, cognition, and emotions, and also changes our day-to-day worldview about people in general."
The only complaint I have is that this book could have used more hierarchical structure.
I cannot get around the fact that it was written by one person, let alone one person with a lot of other books on the same topic, and yet more provocative each time.
I loved the detailed and comprehensive outlook on each subject matter.
It is not a textbook, It is a long essay that gives you a rational, up-to-date, coherent, general yet accurate, A frame for thinking about mind, cognition, and emotions, and also changes our day-to-day worldview about people in general."
The only complaint I have is that this book could have used more hierarchical structure.
September 8, 2012
This is a very readable and influential synthesis of the cognitive science view of the mind with that of evolutionary psychology. The overall thrust is that the mind is a neural computer closely governed by feelings and desires that were shaped by natural selection for their adaptive value in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of our ancestors. The book is lively, with lots of down to earth examples. He holds your hand when wading through many technical subjects, faces disputes in a non-dogmatic way, and addresses political spins on scientific matters in a forthright way.
The heft and scope of the volume is daunting. Yet it is written to be accessible to the general reader as well as scholars. As the emphasis is on synthesis and not a unifying novel theory of mind dependent on the cohesion of all its parts, I feel that the average reader could benefit from reading only the chapters of interest to them. There are sections on visual perception, neural network modeling, passionate emotions, social behaviors, and cultural innovations. As with Wilson’s “Sociobiology”, many readers will be interested in what he has to say about biological roots of human violence, sexual behavior, family values, and the arts. This includes accounts of adaptive values for lying, self delusion, war, mass murder, rape, pornography, parent-child and sibling conflict, altruism, love, marriage, and friendship. Particularly fascinating is his coverage of the cross-cultural phenomenon of people going “amok” and tie-in with the “doomsday machine” theory of passionate emotions, the adaptive value of which lies in their service as “guarantors of threats and promises”.
He makes a good argument that thinking conforms to a kind of language, or mentalese, with categorical, syntactical, and generative properties aligned with Chomsky’s conceptions. He places a big emphasis on the role of beliefs and desires in his perspective on the core properties of human intellect. He doesn’t hold out much hope in the explanatory potential of neuroscience, considering models at that level an inadequate reductionism: "Even if neuroscientists someday decode the entire wiring diagram of the brain, human behavior makes the most sense when it was explained in terms of beliefs and desires, not in terms of volts and grams. Physics provides no insight into the machinations of a crafty lawyer, and even fails to enlighten us about many simpler acts of living things." I agree that explanations at the level physics will not help understand the mind, but I feel hopeful that neuroscience can make much progress in merging biological and psychological models. As this book was written in 2007, it misses the neurological synthesis of the computational and emotional aspects of the mind achieved by Damasio in his 2009 book and the decade of great ferment in cognitive neuroscience due to studies using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
No matter how much it looks like he is on the pathway to biological determinism for so many “bad” human behaviors, he takes great pains to dissociate our inherited mental equipment from our systems of moral responsibility and vision of equal rights: "To understand is not to forgive". For example, understanding a human tendency to revile other cultures does not excuse the Holocaust. Biological determinism for even liberal values can be misguided, e.g. “The argument against persecuting gay people must be made not in terms of the gay gene or the gay brain but in terms of people’s right to engage in private consensual acts without discrimination or harassment.” In the case of the male tendency to mate with any women they can, even to the point of rape, rather than agreeing with one of his students that the key conclusion is that “Men are slime!”, he feels they still should be swayed by morality: “If … men are especially tempted to commit certain crimes against women, the implication is that deterrents should be surer and more severe, not that the crimes are somehow less odious.” Pinker further argues that environmental determinism is just as unfruitful. He feels feminists’ stance against discrimination and oppression of women can do without the position that their origin lies in brainwashing of children and youth by media, pornography, and child rearing and educational practices.
A refreshing aspect of Pinker’s book is that he makes very little claim to explaining free will and sentience. He also places a lot of advanced cultural accomplishments of humans, such as art, humor, and religion in a category of having no likely evolutionary adaptive value. He suspects that these capacities are “along for the ride” and that “human brains evolved by one set of laws, those of natural selection and genetics, and now interact with one another according to another set of laws, those of cognitive and social psychology, human ecology, and history”.
The heft and scope of the volume is daunting. Yet it is written to be accessible to the general reader as well as scholars. As the emphasis is on synthesis and not a unifying novel theory of mind dependent on the cohesion of all its parts, I feel that the average reader could benefit from reading only the chapters of interest to them. There are sections on visual perception, neural network modeling, passionate emotions, social behaviors, and cultural innovations. As with Wilson’s “Sociobiology”, many readers will be interested in what he has to say about biological roots of human violence, sexual behavior, family values, and the arts. This includes accounts of adaptive values for lying, self delusion, war, mass murder, rape, pornography, parent-child and sibling conflict, altruism, love, marriage, and friendship. Particularly fascinating is his coverage of the cross-cultural phenomenon of people going “amok” and tie-in with the “doomsday machine” theory of passionate emotions, the adaptive value of which lies in their service as “guarantors of threats and promises”.
He makes a good argument that thinking conforms to a kind of language, or mentalese, with categorical, syntactical, and generative properties aligned with Chomsky’s conceptions. He places a big emphasis on the role of beliefs and desires in his perspective on the core properties of human intellect. He doesn’t hold out much hope in the explanatory potential of neuroscience, considering models at that level an inadequate reductionism: "Even if neuroscientists someday decode the entire wiring diagram of the brain, human behavior makes the most sense when it was explained in terms of beliefs and desires, not in terms of volts and grams. Physics provides no insight into the machinations of a crafty lawyer, and even fails to enlighten us about many simpler acts of living things." I agree that explanations at the level physics will not help understand the mind, but I feel hopeful that neuroscience can make much progress in merging biological and psychological models. As this book was written in 2007, it misses the neurological synthesis of the computational and emotional aspects of the mind achieved by Damasio in his 2009 book and the decade of great ferment in cognitive neuroscience due to studies using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
No matter how much it looks like he is on the pathway to biological determinism for so many “bad” human behaviors, he takes great pains to dissociate our inherited mental equipment from our systems of moral responsibility and vision of equal rights: "To understand is not to forgive". For example, understanding a human tendency to revile other cultures does not excuse the Holocaust. Biological determinism for even liberal values can be misguided, e.g. “The argument against persecuting gay people must be made not in terms of the gay gene or the gay brain but in terms of people’s right to engage in private consensual acts without discrimination or harassment.” In the case of the male tendency to mate with any women they can, even to the point of rape, rather than agreeing with one of his students that the key conclusion is that “Men are slime!”, he feels they still should be swayed by morality: “If … men are especially tempted to commit certain crimes against women, the implication is that deterrents should be surer and more severe, not that the crimes are somehow less odious.” Pinker further argues that environmental determinism is just as unfruitful. He feels feminists’ stance against discrimination and oppression of women can do without the position that their origin lies in brainwashing of children and youth by media, pornography, and child rearing and educational practices.
A refreshing aspect of Pinker’s book is that he makes very little claim to explaining free will and sentience. He also places a lot of advanced cultural accomplishments of humans, such as art, humor, and religion in a category of having no likely evolutionary adaptive value. He suspects that these capacities are “along for the ride” and that “human brains evolved by one set of laws, those of natural selection and genetics, and now interact with one another according to another set of laws, those of cognitive and social psychology, human ecology, and history”.
May 4, 2010
This book frequently gets rave reviews. Whenever i sit down to read Pinker, i wish i were drinking again. Here is an example of a typical quotation from this book that i could only follow if i were drunk: "The cobalt 60 nucleus is said to spin counterclockwise if you look down on its north pole, but that description by itself is circular because 'north pole' is simply what we call the end of the axis from which a rotation looks counterclockwise." This is in the middle of a discussion, in which he puts down Richard Feynman, and concludes "God is not ambidextrous after all." I feel that Pinker presents his material in an annoyingly obtuse way and may be drinking when he writes. LOL
December 23, 2013
impenetrable, repetitive, useless ... did I say I was disappointed?
July 25, 2021
Long long book. Overburdened with information,but gives very little to the mind. It is a book about how our minds work. I was wondering while reading, does it really get to the point what it tries to explain? And i found very short amount of words motivated towards its motivation. After keeping me drawn to every opening chapters it deviates from its promise and becomes dull. There are so many things to skip which is because of Pinker's inability to understand what should be included in this book. Besides, so many things were incomprehensible(it was not my inability to comprehend) because Pinker wasn’t interested going with the context. What can i say more about a book where the writer blabbers for most of the part! And wouldn’t it be an irony if i try to blabber about a book because of its blabbering?
I would just recommend this book to no one. If anybody wants to read regarding this subject matter of mind there are so many great books except this. So if you don't value your time(which i don't as well),read it anyhow.
I would just recommend this book to no one. If anybody wants to read regarding this subject matter of mind there are so many great books except this. So if you don't value your time(which i don't as well),read it anyhow.
January 9, 2012
Very interesting. 20-30 years from now, I think most people will understand that there's nothing "magical" about the "mind", the "soul", religion, art, men, women, or any of the other sacred cows that continue to hold back humans from understanding themselves.
How the Mind Works was published back in 1997, but I didn't encounter any of the points that Pinker made in High School or Collage, up until 2000. Pinker focuses on a "computational theory of mind", saying that the mind is a complex parallel information processing system.
Of course Pinker doesn't have the "final word" on How the Mind Works, but he provides more evidence, more insight, and more rationality than the "romantics" and their leaders Freud Sigmund 1856-1939 Sigmund and Carl Jung.
Pinker continues on many of the themes here in The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.
Unfortunately for Americans, Political Correctness seems to be a barrier to accurately seeing human nature, as human nature necessarily is different for different groups of people, particularly for men and women.
My favorite anecdote is about the "Coolidge effect":
… an old joke about Calvin Coolidge when he was President … The President and Mrs. Coolidge were being shown [separately] around an experimental government farm. When [Mrs. Coolidge] came to the chicken yard she noticed that a rooster was mating very frequently. She asked the attendant how often that happened and was told, “Dozens of times each day.” Mrs. Coolidge said, “Tell that to the President when he comes by.” Upon being told, President asked, “Same hen every time?” The reply was, “Oh, no, Mr. President, a different hen every time.” President: “Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.”
Pinker explains the mind by "reverse-engineering" it—figuring out what natural selection designed it to accomplish in the environment in which we evolved. The mind, he writes, is a system of "organs of computation" that allowed our ancestors to understand and outsmart objects, animals, plants, and each other.
How the Mind Works explains many of the imponderables of everyday life. Why does a face look more attractive with makeup? How do "Magic-Eye" 3-D stereograms work? Why do we feel that a run of heads makes the coin more likely to land tails? Why is the thought of eating worms disgusting? Why do men challenge each other to duels and murder their ex-wives? Why are children bratty? Why do fools fall in love? Why are we soothed by paintings and music? And why do puzzles like the self, free will, and consciousness leave us dizzy?
This arguments in the book are as bold as its title. Pinker rehabilitates unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection. And he challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, that creativity springs from the unconscious, that nature is good and modern society corrupting, and that art and religion are expressions of our higher spiritual yearnings.
How the Mind Works was published back in 1997, but I didn't encounter any of the points that Pinker made in High School or Collage, up until 2000. Pinker focuses on a "computational theory of mind", saying that the mind is a complex parallel information processing system.
Of course Pinker doesn't have the "final word" on How the Mind Works, but he provides more evidence, more insight, and more rationality than the "romantics" and their leaders Freud Sigmund 1856-1939 Sigmund and Carl Jung.
Pinker continues on many of the themes here in The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.
Unfortunately for Americans, Political Correctness seems to be a barrier to accurately seeing human nature, as human nature necessarily is different for different groups of people, particularly for men and women.
My favorite anecdote is about the "Coolidge effect":
… an old joke about Calvin Coolidge when he was President … The President and Mrs. Coolidge were being shown [separately] around an experimental government farm. When [Mrs. Coolidge] came to the chicken yard she noticed that a rooster was mating very frequently. She asked the attendant how often that happened and was told, “Dozens of times each day.” Mrs. Coolidge said, “Tell that to the President when he comes by.” Upon being told, President asked, “Same hen every time?” The reply was, “Oh, no, Mr. President, a different hen every time.” President: “Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.”
Pinker explains the mind by "reverse-engineering" it—figuring out what natural selection designed it to accomplish in the environment in which we evolved. The mind, he writes, is a system of "organs of computation" that allowed our ancestors to understand and outsmart objects, animals, plants, and each other.
How the Mind Works explains many of the imponderables of everyday life. Why does a face look more attractive with makeup? How do "Magic-Eye" 3-D stereograms work? Why do we feel that a run of heads makes the coin more likely to land tails? Why is the thought of eating worms disgusting? Why do men challenge each other to duels and murder their ex-wives? Why are children bratty? Why do fools fall in love? Why are we soothed by paintings and music? And why do puzzles like the self, free will, and consciousness leave us dizzy?
This arguments in the book are as bold as its title. Pinker rehabilitates unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection. And he challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, that creativity springs from the unconscious, that nature is good and modern society corrupting, and that art and religion are expressions of our higher spiritual yearnings.
April 14, 2010
The title of the book should have read "How the Mind Works (According to Steven Pinker)." The picture he paints is not wrong, per se, but vastly overestimates the power of current cognitive modeling.
There is quite a bit of good material here reviewing computational theory of mind, modularity, evolutionary psychology, and related material in cognitive science written in Pinker's usual conversational style. However, I have to hop off the bandwagon at the halfway point on this one. Sure, computational theory of mind has produced a lot of fruitful research. The mind is, to some degree, modular. The brain, like all our other organs, is shaped by evolution. My main problem is in his jump from the modularity at "low-level" cognition (e.g., basic sensory input, certain parts of language) posited by Jerry A. Fodor to "massive modularity." There are some functions that are very localized in the brain that fit with modularity, but we would expect the brain to look very different if massive modularity were true. The brain is actually very plastic with many higher-order functions that aren't strictly localized. The same thing goes for his evolutionary explanations. I will happily agree that many cognitive systems and functions are adaptive -- having eyes and a visual system is obviously beneficial! When it comes to more complex social behaviors, we're in far more speculative territory.
As an introduction to cognitive science, it does present the material in an accessible way. However, it will be difficult to for the layperson to pick apart where Pinker's description is backed by solid evidence and where it lapses into questionable claims and rank speculation. There's a bit of fluff, too, especially near the end when it begins to cross over into the more overt political rambling characteristic of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.
Fodor's The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology (http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Fodo...) makes for a decent corrective, though I have problems with it as well. I'm in total agreement on one point with Fodor, though: When it comes to cognitive science, we're just getting started.
There is quite a bit of good material here reviewing computational theory of mind, modularity, evolutionary psychology, and related material in cognitive science written in Pinker's usual conversational style. However, I have to hop off the bandwagon at the halfway point on this one. Sure, computational theory of mind has produced a lot of fruitful research. The mind is, to some degree, modular. The brain, like all our other organs, is shaped by evolution. My main problem is in his jump from the modularity at "low-level" cognition (e.g., basic sensory input, certain parts of language) posited by Jerry A. Fodor to "massive modularity." There are some functions that are very localized in the brain that fit with modularity, but we would expect the brain to look very different if massive modularity were true. The brain is actually very plastic with many higher-order functions that aren't strictly localized. The same thing goes for his evolutionary explanations. I will happily agree that many cognitive systems and functions are adaptive -- having eyes and a visual system is obviously beneficial! When it comes to more complex social behaviors, we're in far more speculative territory.
As an introduction to cognitive science, it does present the material in an accessible way. However, it will be difficult to for the layperson to pick apart where Pinker's description is backed by solid evidence and where it lapses into questionable claims and rank speculation. There's a bit of fluff, too, especially near the end when it begins to cross over into the more overt political rambling characteristic of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.
Fodor's The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology (http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Fodo...) makes for a decent corrective, though I have problems with it as well. I'm in total agreement on one point with Fodor, though: When it comes to cognitive science, we're just getting started.
December 12, 2022
So many great paragraphs that they make up for a few places where he gets lazy and spells out conventions. As the number of notes I took goes, this book is a winner; in addition to all its original content, it has the best summaries I've encountered of many complex ideas/theories. He is remarkably devastating against standard social sciences and postmodernist thinking.
The book may get a little monotone in the technical chapters, but it's a must-read for anyone interested in psychology, evolution, nature-nurture debates, or mundane questions like "Why do men and women want different things?".
I just wish he was more open to the meme theory; then he could be perfect.
The book may get a little monotone in the technical chapters, but it's a must-read for anyone interested in psychology, evolution, nature-nurture debates, or mundane questions like "Why do men and women want different things?".
I just wish he was more open to the meme theory; then he could be perfect.
July 3, 2018
What parts of the brain create awareness? Are we really aware of ourselves? Why has the mind evolved to make decisions in the way it does? why do we really laugh at a joke? Why does a face look more attractive with makeup? Why does our brain drive us to enjoy sex? Why is the thought of eating worms disgusting? Why do paintings and music alleviate the hunger and thurst of mind? Why did we invent religion, music and art? How did these items adapt in the long run if it serves to nothing from an evolutionary perspective?
... ... ...
The book covers the computational theory of mind (mind is the computational product of the brain) and evolutionary psychology. There is a very little discussion about the biology of the brain but it still ponders over human natures to explain them from the biological adaptations and the by-product of evolution perspectives.
The book was published over 20 years ago but Pinker is an engaging writer. So, at least the connecting experience with a first-rate mind might not be frustrating :)
... ... ...
The book covers the computational theory of mind (mind is the computational product of the brain) and evolutionary psychology. There is a very little discussion about the biology of the brain but it still ponders over human natures to explain them from the biological adaptations and the by-product of evolution perspectives.
The book was published over 20 years ago but Pinker is an engaging writer. So, at least the connecting experience with a first-rate mind might not be frustrating :)
Read
December 23, 2009"http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1289334.html[return][return]I was really disappointed by this book. Pinker starts out by claiming that he will explain the origins of human emotions, aesthetics, and belief in the context of the latest findings of evolutionary and psychological research. He does not really succeed in doing so. It is a succession of moderately interesting research reports, linked together with a glue of neat one-liners (mostly other people's), but without really coming to a killer conclusion and indeed occasionally resorting to sheer polemic (eg on gender). The section on neural networks is particularly dull, especially as Pinker admits that living brains don't actually function that way. [return][return]I found precisely two points of interest in the book, both pretty tangential to the main thrust of the argument. First, of interest only to those who also know her, is that an old family friend is mentioned in passing on the development of children's minds. Second, of more general interest, is the observation that all cultures tend to design ornamental gardens with unconscious reference to the primeval African savannah - lawns and flowerbeds interrupted by carefully placed features. Rather a pleasing thought! This observation is not Pinker's own, but he does give pretty full citations for it which the interested reader can follow up.[return][return]I hear that Pinker's other books are better, so shall continue to look out for them though without particular enthusiasm."
August 31, 2009
Let's be honest. I will probably never pick up this book to finish it. I began reading this because of my book club. But, I didn't think I would finish it to begin with, and due to many circumstances, the book club will not be meeting for this book. So, I have decided to put it down as one of those books I'll never finish.
I didn't like most of what I read, not due to the subject/topic, but due to the way Pinker writes. His droning on on tangents and his shoving his philosophy, which is oh so right BTW [she said dripping with sarcasm:] was too much for me. I had a hard time staying interested, which was a shame, because most sections began with promise. But Pinker would, more often than not, find a way to make the topic at hand induce heavy eyelids (or eye rolling, depending).
I wanted this book to be good and thought it would be interesting, being a Bachelor of Psychology graduate myself, but no such luck. Maybe in many years, when I have more time on my hands, or less sense, I will try picking this book up again.
I didn't like most of what I read, not due to the subject/topic, but due to the way Pinker writes. His droning on on tangents and his shoving his philosophy, which is oh so right BTW [she said dripping with sarcasm:] was too much for me. I had a hard time staying interested, which was a shame, because most sections began with promise. But Pinker would, more often than not, find a way to make the topic at hand induce heavy eyelids (or eye rolling, depending).
I wanted this book to be good and thought it would be interesting, being a Bachelor of Psychology graduate myself, but no such luck. Maybe in many years, when I have more time on my hands, or less sense, I will try picking this book up again.
December 16, 2014
This book covers the computational theory of mind and evolutionary psychology. The former asserts that the mind is the computational product of the brain. The later examines how many aspects of human nature can be explained as biological adaptations. Both are crucial to understanding how the mind works. Both are explained in exquisite depth (read: this is a very long book).
Pinker gets one thing wrong at the end when he asserts what's known as the the "hard problem of consciousness" which his refers to as sentience. He also makes a misstatement about free will.
"Sentience is not a combination of brain events or computational states."
"Free will is not a causal chain of events and states by definition."
This is frustrating because I feel like he ran a 3 minute mile but stopped just shy of the finish line!
He's wrong on both counts. For more read Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett.
Pinker gets one thing wrong at the end when he asserts what's known as the the "hard problem of consciousness" which his refers to as sentience. He also makes a misstatement about free will.
"Sentience is not a combination of brain events or computational states."
"Free will is not a causal chain of events and states by definition."
This is frustrating because I feel like he ran a 3 minute mile but stopped just shy of the finish line!
He's wrong on both counts. For more read Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett.
February 5, 2008
I read all bio-determinist arguments, no matter how sound their science, as a mandate to return to the 50's - those halcyon days when men schnoockered their secretaries while women bought canned foods and tended the young. Nonetheless, I loved this book. The early chapters, especially on the computational theory of mind, are incredible. Pinker is just unbelievably detailed and the linguistic spin he brings to the discussion of cognitive development is a great dimension. The later chapters are more of the men-like-variety-women-like-providers stuff that one usually hears but nuanced and entertaining nonetheless. I enjoyed this book a lot.
April 10, 2023
4.5/5. The minus half star is for the amount of Woody Allan references. Fuck that guy.
That aside tho, great summary of my cognitive science degree so far. Could've saved me a couple classes tbh.
Aside from the strictly biological facts / cognitive theories: had some interesting asides about how we can or should combine (or sometimes detach) science from morality and ethics. Don't know where I stand in all of those points yet but good to think about.
That aside tho, great summary of my cognitive science degree so far. Could've saved me a couple classes tbh.
Aside from the strictly biological facts / cognitive theories: had some interesting asides about how we can or should combine (or sometimes detach) science from morality and ethics. Don't know where I stand in all of those points yet but good to think about.
October 15, 2008
Pinker's treatise on the naturalist mind looks like a science textbook, but the combination of computer programming and physiology laid on top of sociological metaphors and applicable understandings makes it a fantastic read. His ability to diffuse archaic arguments about the nature of the mind without appearing argumentative is what defines him as a great academic, and his ability to explain things to individuals with only a high school education (like me) is what defines him as a great writer.
The assaults on the superstitions of Freud are particularly interesting, and his breaking down of the purely linguistic issue of Searle's "Chinese Box" problem leads you to come to the same conclusion that Pinker does as Pinker is unfolding the problem.
Anyone who likes to study the nature of mind, who enjoys reading authors ranging from Dennett to Proust will like this book, and those who like to discuss the topics will find themselves better informed and far more capable of explaining things with Pinker's metaphors.
The assaults on the superstitions of Freud are particularly interesting, and his breaking down of the purely linguistic issue of Searle's "Chinese Box" problem leads you to come to the same conclusion that Pinker does as Pinker is unfolding the problem.
Anyone who likes to study the nature of mind, who enjoys reading authors ranging from Dennett to Proust will like this book, and those who like to discuss the topics will find themselves better informed and far more capable of explaining things with Pinker's metaphors.
January 29, 2011
في هذا الكتاب يتحدث ستيفن بنكر أستاذ العلوم الإدراكية وعالم النفس بشكل أساسي عن نظرية العقل الحسابية
computational theory of the mind
بالعربي، الرجل يتحدث عن العقل (ليس المخ) من وجهة نظر أخرى غير اعتيادية. وجهة نظر تطورية. فيفسر العمليات الادراكية داخل العقل بقوى تطورية (داروينية) وبقوانين حاسويبة.
النظريات التي طرحها وتحدث عنها بنكر رائعة وطريقة شرحها أروع
قد يكون عنوان الكتاب مضلل بعض الشي. لكنه كتاب يستحق القراءة
computational theory of the mind
بالعربي، الرجل يتحدث عن العقل (ليس المخ) من وجهة نظر أخرى غير اعتيادية. وجهة نظر تطورية. فيفسر العمليات الادراكية داخل العقل بقوى تطورية (داروينية) وبقوانين حاسويبة.
النظريات التي طرحها وتحدث عنها بنكر رائعة وطريقة شرحها أروع
قد يكون عنوان الكتاب مضلل بعض الشي. لكنه كتاب يستحق القراءة
March 3, 2018
This book is way too long, and the last part (about philosophy) is fairly ill-informed. The most surprising thing is that cognitive psychology is limited to perception and the imagery debate; no discussion of memory, very limited discussion of reasoning, not to mention planning or motor planning. For today's standards, it's outdated by David Buss's text on evolutionary psychology.
July 16, 2017
Harika bir kitap. Pinker müthiş bir yazar..
October 10, 2020
VALUTAZIONE PERSONALE: 3,4
How Mind Works é senza dubbio uno dei saggi più lunghi e corposi che mi sia capitato di leggere: ho impiegato moltissimo tempo a terminarlo, un po' a causa dei mille impegni che, purtroppo, riducono sempre più il tempo da dedicare alla lettura, un po' per la sua lunghezza e, perché no, per la noia che alcune sezioni del libro mi hanno trasmesso, in particolar modo i primi capitoli, sebbene, col senno di poi, é risultato evidente che siano quelli più importanti e significativi nell'esporre al lettore la teoria di base dell'autore circa il funzionamento della mente umana.
Per i suddetti motivi, giunto al termine di questo libro, mi ritrovo senza dubbio in difficoltà nel ricordare tutti i passaggi: posso tuttavia cogliere il nocciolo della questione e sintetizzare dicendo che alla base di tutte le considerazioni che l'autore espone al lettore vi é la teoria computazionale della mente. A cosa si riferisce, nella sostanza? Non mi resta che citare direttamente un passo del libro:
"Lo speciale status del cervello deriva dalla sua speciale funzione, che ci permette di vedere, pensare, provare sensazioni, scegliere e agire. Questa funzione speciale è l’elaborazione di informazioni, o computazione. Informazione e computazione risiedono in pattern, o configurazioni, di dati e in rapporti di logica che sono indipendenti dal medium fisico che li trasporta. Quando telefono a mia madre in un’altra città, il messaggio rimane lo stesso che va dalle mie labbra alle sue orecchie, anche se cambia forma fisica: da aria in vibrazione a elettricità in un filo, a cariche nel silicio, a luce guizzante in un cavo a fibre ottiche, a onde elettromagnetiche, e ritorno seguendo il percorso inverso. Analogamente, il messaggio rimane lo stesso quando, dopo aver cambiato forma nella sua testa diventando una cascata di neuroni che si attivano e di sostanze chimiche che si diffondono attraverso sinapsi, lei lo ripete a mio padre seduto sul lato opposto del divano. Allo stesso modo, un dato programma può correre su computer fatti di tubi a vuoto, commutatori elettromagnetici, transistor, circuiti integrati, o piccioni viaggiatori ben addestrati, e ottiene gli stessi risultati per le stesse ragioni. Tale intuizione, espressa per la prima volta dal matematico Alan Turing, dagli informatici Allen Newell, Herbert Simon e Marvin Minsky e dai filosofi Hilary Putnam e Jerry Fodor, è ora detta teoria computazionale della mente".
Altro punto fondamentale é il seguente: l'ingegneria inversa.
Ancora, per dirla con le sue stesse parole:
"...la mente è un sistema di organi di computazione designato per selezione naturale a risolvere i problemi posti ai nostri antenati dalla loro condizione di cacciatori-raccoglitori, in particolare come capire e sfruttare oggetti, animali, piante e altre persone. Tale sintesi è scomponibile in più affermazioni. La mente è ciò che il cervello fa; in particolare, il cervello elabora informazioni, e pensare è una sorta di computazione. La mente è organizzata in moduli, o organi mentali, dotati ognuno di una specializzazione che ne fa un esperto in un singolo terreno d’interazione con il mondo. La logica base dei moduli è specificata dal nostro programma genetico. Il loro funzionamento si è modellato per selezione naturale in modo da risolvere i problemi della vita di cacciatori e raccoglitori condotta dai nostri antenati durante la maggior parte della nostra storia evoluzionistica. I vari problemi dei nostri antenati erano sottocompiti di un unico grande problema dei loro geni: massimizzare il numero di copie capaci di giungere alla generazione successiva. In quest’ottica, la psicologia è ingegneria inversa. Nell’ingegneria normale si costruisce una macchina per un certo scopo; nell’ingegneria inversa si cerca di capire per quale scopo una macchina è stata costruita. "
Posso dunque concludere dicendo che tutti i più grandi aspetti della psicologia umana progressivamente esposti nei vari capitoli vengono affrontati ed elaborati tenendo conto dei due capisaldi precedentemente citati, e non vi sono dubbi che moltissimi passaggi sono estremamente stimolanti per il lettore e che, almeno personalmente, mi hanno "convinto" nella loro semplicità quanto efficacia propositiva.
Tuttavia, alcune considerazioni mi hanno indotto a mantenere un atteggiamento tiepido, entusiasta ma al contempo sufficientemente distaccato e critico nei confronti di ciò che leggevo:
1) How Mind Works é un libro estremamente datato (la prima edizione risale ai primi anni Novanta), soprattutto per i temi trattati: campi come la neurobiologia e la neuropsicologia sono in rapida evoluzione. Sebbene nella prefazione a questa edizione l' autore afferma che l'impianto generale del saggio continua ad essere valido, non sono sufficientemente edotto su queste materie e sui suoi più recenti sviluppi per poter credere acriticamente ad una affermazione simile;
2) l'efficacia divulgativa di Pinker, su temi così opinabili e controversi, mi é parsa piuttosto limitata: non perché non sia capace nell'esporli ai non addetti ai lavori (sebbene alcuni passaggi non sono semplicissimi da capire per chi non ha almeno delle conoscenze basilari in questo campi, mentre altri li ho trovati mortalmente noiosi proprio per il modo in cui erano esposti), ma perché ho avuto l' impressione che l'autore non avesse potuto fare a meno di polemizzare, talvolta anche inopportunamente, con i suoi oppositori, nonché di apparire politically uncorrect ogni qualvolta se ne presentasse l' occasione.
Insomma, non mi ha fatto impazzire il suo stile divulgativo, per dirla in breve.
In conclusione, vale davvero la pena cimentarsi nella lettura di questo librone? Le idee proposte sono estremamente interessanti,e vale la pena approfondirle e tenerle in buona considerazione; il lavoro bibliografico é enorme e di certo non si può dire che sia qualitativamente scadente, tutt'altro.
É "l'anzianità" del libro, nonché lo stile espositivo dell' autore ( sempre secondo il mio umilissimo parere) che fanno pendere la bilancia dal lato opposto: insomma, andrei sicuramente alla ricerca di un testo piú aggiornato e più efficace nell' esposizione di questi argomenti.
How Mind Works é senza dubbio uno dei saggi più lunghi e corposi che mi sia capitato di leggere: ho impiegato moltissimo tempo a terminarlo, un po' a causa dei mille impegni che, purtroppo, riducono sempre più il tempo da dedicare alla lettura, un po' per la sua lunghezza e, perché no, per la noia che alcune sezioni del libro mi hanno trasmesso, in particolar modo i primi capitoli, sebbene, col senno di poi, é risultato evidente che siano quelli più importanti e significativi nell'esporre al lettore la teoria di base dell'autore circa il funzionamento della mente umana.
Per i suddetti motivi, giunto al termine di questo libro, mi ritrovo senza dubbio in difficoltà nel ricordare tutti i passaggi: posso tuttavia cogliere il nocciolo della questione e sintetizzare dicendo che alla base di tutte le considerazioni che l'autore espone al lettore vi é la teoria computazionale della mente. A cosa si riferisce, nella sostanza? Non mi resta che citare direttamente un passo del libro:
"Lo speciale status del cervello deriva dalla sua speciale funzione, che ci permette di vedere, pensare, provare sensazioni, scegliere e agire. Questa funzione speciale è l’elaborazione di informazioni, o computazione. Informazione e computazione risiedono in pattern, o configurazioni, di dati e in rapporti di logica che sono indipendenti dal medium fisico che li trasporta. Quando telefono a mia madre in un’altra città, il messaggio rimane lo stesso che va dalle mie labbra alle sue orecchie, anche se cambia forma fisica: da aria in vibrazione a elettricità in un filo, a cariche nel silicio, a luce guizzante in un cavo a fibre ottiche, a onde elettromagnetiche, e ritorno seguendo il percorso inverso. Analogamente, il messaggio rimane lo stesso quando, dopo aver cambiato forma nella sua testa diventando una cascata di neuroni che si attivano e di sostanze chimiche che si diffondono attraverso sinapsi, lei lo ripete a mio padre seduto sul lato opposto del divano. Allo stesso modo, un dato programma può correre su computer fatti di tubi a vuoto, commutatori elettromagnetici, transistor, circuiti integrati, o piccioni viaggiatori ben addestrati, e ottiene gli stessi risultati per le stesse ragioni. Tale intuizione, espressa per la prima volta dal matematico Alan Turing, dagli informatici Allen Newell, Herbert Simon e Marvin Minsky e dai filosofi Hilary Putnam e Jerry Fodor, è ora detta teoria computazionale della mente".
Altro punto fondamentale é il seguente: l'ingegneria inversa.
Ancora, per dirla con le sue stesse parole:
"...la mente è un sistema di organi di computazione designato per selezione naturale a risolvere i problemi posti ai nostri antenati dalla loro condizione di cacciatori-raccoglitori, in particolare come capire e sfruttare oggetti, animali, piante e altre persone. Tale sintesi è scomponibile in più affermazioni. La mente è ciò che il cervello fa; in particolare, il cervello elabora informazioni, e pensare è una sorta di computazione. La mente è organizzata in moduli, o organi mentali, dotati ognuno di una specializzazione che ne fa un esperto in un singolo terreno d’interazione con il mondo. La logica base dei moduli è specificata dal nostro programma genetico. Il loro funzionamento si è modellato per selezione naturale in modo da risolvere i problemi della vita di cacciatori e raccoglitori condotta dai nostri antenati durante la maggior parte della nostra storia evoluzionistica. I vari problemi dei nostri antenati erano sottocompiti di un unico grande problema dei loro geni: massimizzare il numero di copie capaci di giungere alla generazione successiva. In quest’ottica, la psicologia è ingegneria inversa. Nell’ingegneria normale si costruisce una macchina per un certo scopo; nell’ingegneria inversa si cerca di capire per quale scopo una macchina è stata costruita. "
Posso dunque concludere dicendo che tutti i più grandi aspetti della psicologia umana progressivamente esposti nei vari capitoli vengono affrontati ed elaborati tenendo conto dei due capisaldi precedentemente citati, e non vi sono dubbi che moltissimi passaggi sono estremamente stimolanti per il lettore e che, almeno personalmente, mi hanno "convinto" nella loro semplicità quanto efficacia propositiva.
Tuttavia, alcune considerazioni mi hanno indotto a mantenere un atteggiamento tiepido, entusiasta ma al contempo sufficientemente distaccato e critico nei confronti di ciò che leggevo:
1) How Mind Works é un libro estremamente datato (la prima edizione risale ai primi anni Novanta), soprattutto per i temi trattati: campi come la neurobiologia e la neuropsicologia sono in rapida evoluzione. Sebbene nella prefazione a questa edizione l' autore afferma che l'impianto generale del saggio continua ad essere valido, non sono sufficientemente edotto su queste materie e sui suoi più recenti sviluppi per poter credere acriticamente ad una affermazione simile;
2) l'efficacia divulgativa di Pinker, su temi così opinabili e controversi, mi é parsa piuttosto limitata: non perché non sia capace nell'esporli ai non addetti ai lavori (sebbene alcuni passaggi non sono semplicissimi da capire per chi non ha almeno delle conoscenze basilari in questo campi, mentre altri li ho trovati mortalmente noiosi proprio per il modo in cui erano esposti), ma perché ho avuto l' impressione che l'autore non avesse potuto fare a meno di polemizzare, talvolta anche inopportunamente, con i suoi oppositori, nonché di apparire politically uncorrect ogni qualvolta se ne presentasse l' occasione.
Insomma, non mi ha fatto impazzire il suo stile divulgativo, per dirla in breve.
In conclusione, vale davvero la pena cimentarsi nella lettura di questo librone? Le idee proposte sono estremamente interessanti,e vale la pena approfondirle e tenerle in buona considerazione; il lavoro bibliografico é enorme e di certo non si può dire che sia qualitativamente scadente, tutt'altro.
É "l'anzianità" del libro, nonché lo stile espositivo dell' autore ( sempre secondo il mio umilissimo parere) che fanno pendere la bilancia dal lato opposto: insomma, andrei sicuramente alla ricerca di un testo piú aggiornato e più efficace nell' esposizione di questi argomenti.
December 13, 2011
“Как работи умът”, чудото на еволюцията без цел според Стивън Пинкър
http://www.knigolandia.info/2011/12/b...
На първо място – за какво, по дяволите, се говори в тухлата “Как работи умът”. Всъщност за нещо простичко, както пише той още в началото:
“…умът e сложна система за невронна обработка на информация, която изгражда мисловни модели на физическия и социалния свят и преследва цели, свързани по същността си с оцеляването и възпроизводството в една предмодерна среда”. Туйто. Пинкър се опира изцяло на еволюцията и математиката и изгражда стройна теория за появата на разума и неговото преимущество за разпространението на нашия вид до доминиращ на планетата. А че още в главите си сме в праисторията, това едва ли може да се отрече.
http://www.knigolandia.info/2011/12/b...
На първо място – за какво, по дяволите, се говори в тухлата “Как работи умът”. Всъщност за нещо простичко, както пише той още в началото:
“…умът e сложна система за невронна обработка на информация, която изгражда мисловни модели на физическия и социалния свят и преследва цели, свързани по същността си с оцеляването и възпроизводството в една предмодерна среда”. Туйто. Пинкър се опира изцяло на еволюцията и математиката и изгражда стройна теория за появата на разума и неговото преимущество за разпространението на нашия вид до доминиращ на планетата. А че още в главите си сме в праисторията, това едва ли може да се отрече.
March 10, 2017
Pinker hits the bull's eye in this book debunking the ill arguments of the nurture front in the nature nurture debate, on his way relentlessly takes down feminism, noble savage theory, blank slate and on the side veganism a bit dealing crushing blows with solid arguments and facts. A must read for those interested in behavioral research and debunking the patchouli scented romantic arguments of the left.
May 9, 2017
Language provides a window into the history of society, but this book also helps show how it has both formed and is a part of our consciousness and our own experience. I think a huge range of people would enjoy this book for many many reasons. Perhaps the only genre that would struggle with it would be possibly the very religious. Otherwise pick it up and have a read you are going to love it!
May 14, 2019
2.5/5, много полезна информация, събрана на едно място. Шапки долу за труда да се събере и синтезира.
Но... много куц писател :) не умее да разказва, но му пиша шест за умението да проучва и синтезира.
Но... много куц писател :) не умее да разказва, но му пиша шест за умението да проучва и синтезира.
February 19, 2018
This book is out of date. I chose not to waste any more time listening to it when I realized it was written in the mid 1990's.
July 30, 2017
In this book, Steven Pinker describes our mind - more precisely: our mental faculties - as a complex set of algorithms, sculpted by natural selection. Pinker uses two theories - the computational theory of mind and the theory of evolution by natural selection - to accomplish this amazing feat.
According to the computational theory of mind, our mental organs are composed of algorithms, built up out of simpler subroutines which are in turn built up out of subsubroutines. This goes all the way down to the most basic, simplest algorithms that are digital: yes/no, on/off, etc. What it means, in essence, is that we come equipped with pre-programmed mental software with which we perceive the world. This software works is based on certain assumptions - based on the stability and the continuity of physical laws - and it's in the moments that the assumptions don't hold that we are tricked or fooled by our own mind (i.e. cognitive illusions).
The other building block of Pinkers story is evolution by natural selection. Evolution shaped all the organisms on this planet, including us. Homo sapiens is unique in its mental capabilities, even though our mind is just one way to solve the natural problems (some others being strong, quick, etc.). I think the theory of evolution by natural selection has been described by excellent writers such as Dawkins, Dennett, Ridley and Zimmer (not to mention Darwin himself, even though his theory of inheritence was flawed), so I will not dwell on it here.
Now to Pinkers main thesis: to understand our mind, we have to reverse-engineer our mental organs. In other words: for every psychological trait or phenomenon we have to ask the question 'what was its adaptive function in our ancestors' environment?' It is precisely this question that cuts deep through the delusional paradigms of modern day academicians and intellectuals. The mantra is "culture determines who we are". In other words: men rape because they are raised in a culture that's hostile to women. Instead of letting ideology guide science, Pinker approaches the problem from a scientific viewpoint: first describing the facts, then using the simplest theory as possible to explain the data and after this making moral statements. Some examples:
In the chapter on Family Values, Pinker tackles the conflicts of interests between parents and offspring, husbands and wives, men and women in general and siblings. He explains these conflicts in terms of different evolutionary strategies between men and women. It pays for men to seek out sex as much as possible; it pays for women to be very selective who to mate with. This is a biological truth that even feminists and neo-marxists/blank slaters can't deny. This fundamental difference leads to competition between men for sexual access to women and to the pursuit of looking young and fertile (i.e. beautiful) between women. One of the most overlooked facts that Pinker mentions in this chapter is that a lot of the incentives for war, rape and murder are sexual motives. Maybe the men joining the army are not so crazy after all: throughout history, one of the most important rewards of victorious armies has been the genocide of men and kids and the mass rape of women. Pinkers paradigm offers new insights into our urge for agression.
But this is not all, Pinkers paradigm also offers new insights into our urge to have friends and seek out honest reputations. Evolutionary speaking, it paid to cooperate. The only problem is that this presupposes cheater-detection mechanisms, which are prone to be exploited. One of the most important parts of our social life is the earning of an honest reputation; this shows others that you are a reliable cooperator.
A third interesting aspect was the chapter on vision. Pinker analyzes the geometry of paintings and other visual art forms. One of the common threads is the presence of open landscapes with a broad horizon and some places of shelter. This was the environment our ancestors evolved in, it explains our like for these sorts of paintings and surroundings and our dislike for thick forests and deserts.
A fourth insight is the way how our ideas are formed. We come equipped with mental software to perceive the world - including the other minds in this world - and to make decisions. These algorithms are heuristic in nature. In other words: they are based on assumptions that normally held in our ancestors' environment. Sometimes we encounter situations where these assumptions don't hold and we fall prey to cognitive illusions. For example, it is commonly known that the frame in which a logical problem is placed determines the effectivity of our judgments.
A final important subject to note is the function of our emotions. Our emotions guide are actions, they are the incentives that lead us to chase pleasure and avoid pain. The objects of pleasure and pain are goals, set by evolution. We enjoy sex because organisms (i.e. our ancestors) that enjoyed sex had more sex and thereby had more offspring than organisms that didn't enjoy sex. We enjoy certain foods because our ancestors enjoyed those foods - and those that didn't had less offspring. In a sense, Hume was right when he wrote "reason is the slave of our passions." Our passions motive us to seek out the things we enjoy and avoid the things we hate.
To summarize: Pinker tries to show that by looking at our psychology as mental organs, consisting of algorithms, that were sculpted by natural selection in the past eons, we have a new paradigm to understand our mind. A paradigm based on two of the most accepted theories in science and one that excludes ideology. Only a realistic understanding of our mental constitution can lead us to appreciate what is good and what should be changed for the better. An informed ethics presupposes evolutionary psychology.
Even though I completely agree with Pinker's message and am interested in evolutionary psychology, I can't really recommend this book to laypeople. It would be better, before reading How the Mind Works, to school yourself in evolutionary biology and psychology, because Pinker's style of explaining is not for the faint hearted; he makes use of many terms that presuppose a lot of prior knowledge about the subjects involved. And a thing that annoyed me is the sheer mass of this book: 660 pages. Some chapters contained 90+ pages, which is way too long (in my opinion).
But I should not end this review on a sour note, this was a pleasant read and value the various insights I gained from this.
On a sidenote: Pinker's treatment of free will and consciousness is confusing. On the one hand, he makes valuable distinctions. So when he deals with consciousness, he makes a distinction between self knowledge, access to information and sentience and explains that the first to senses are in theory explainable by science. This is helpful. On the other hand, Pinker offers no route to answers himself and seems to retreat in a very un-academic mindset with regard to these topics. So in the example of consciousness, even though the first two aforementioned senses are explainable in scientific terms, sentience is not. Even stronger: our mind has been shaped by natural selection to deal with everyday problems and situations, offering the solution to the riddle of sentience not being one of them. In other words: the problem of consciousness is unsolvable in principle and we should not waste any more intellectual effort on this futile search. A very un-scientific mindset. (In 1542 people thought the earth was the centre of the cosmos; in 1543 Copernicus showed the earth to be just another mass of iron orbiting the sun; in the 20th century we discovered that even our sun is not so special: we live in an increasingly expanding universe in which we are just a temporary spec of dust).
According to the computational theory of mind, our mental organs are composed of algorithms, built up out of simpler subroutines which are in turn built up out of subsubroutines. This goes all the way down to the most basic, simplest algorithms that are digital: yes/no, on/off, etc. What it means, in essence, is that we come equipped with pre-programmed mental software with which we perceive the world. This software works is based on certain assumptions - based on the stability and the continuity of physical laws - and it's in the moments that the assumptions don't hold that we are tricked or fooled by our own mind (i.e. cognitive illusions).
The other building block of Pinkers story is evolution by natural selection. Evolution shaped all the organisms on this planet, including us. Homo sapiens is unique in its mental capabilities, even though our mind is just one way to solve the natural problems (some others being strong, quick, etc.). I think the theory of evolution by natural selection has been described by excellent writers such as Dawkins, Dennett, Ridley and Zimmer (not to mention Darwin himself, even though his theory of inheritence was flawed), so I will not dwell on it here.
Now to Pinkers main thesis: to understand our mind, we have to reverse-engineer our mental organs. In other words: for every psychological trait or phenomenon we have to ask the question 'what was its adaptive function in our ancestors' environment?' It is precisely this question that cuts deep through the delusional paradigms of modern day academicians and intellectuals. The mantra is "culture determines who we are". In other words: men rape because they are raised in a culture that's hostile to women. Instead of letting ideology guide science, Pinker approaches the problem from a scientific viewpoint: first describing the facts, then using the simplest theory as possible to explain the data and after this making moral statements. Some examples:
In the chapter on Family Values, Pinker tackles the conflicts of interests between parents and offspring, husbands and wives, men and women in general and siblings. He explains these conflicts in terms of different evolutionary strategies between men and women. It pays for men to seek out sex as much as possible; it pays for women to be very selective who to mate with. This is a biological truth that even feminists and neo-marxists/blank slaters can't deny. This fundamental difference leads to competition between men for sexual access to women and to the pursuit of looking young and fertile (i.e. beautiful) between women. One of the most overlooked facts that Pinker mentions in this chapter is that a lot of the incentives for war, rape and murder are sexual motives. Maybe the men joining the army are not so crazy after all: throughout history, one of the most important rewards of victorious armies has been the genocide of men and kids and the mass rape of women. Pinkers paradigm offers new insights into our urge for agression.
But this is not all, Pinkers paradigm also offers new insights into our urge to have friends and seek out honest reputations. Evolutionary speaking, it paid to cooperate. The only problem is that this presupposes cheater-detection mechanisms, which are prone to be exploited. One of the most important parts of our social life is the earning of an honest reputation; this shows others that you are a reliable cooperator.
A third interesting aspect was the chapter on vision. Pinker analyzes the geometry of paintings and other visual art forms. One of the common threads is the presence of open landscapes with a broad horizon and some places of shelter. This was the environment our ancestors evolved in, it explains our like for these sorts of paintings and surroundings and our dislike for thick forests and deserts.
A fourth insight is the way how our ideas are formed. We come equipped with mental software to perceive the world - including the other minds in this world - and to make decisions. These algorithms are heuristic in nature. In other words: they are based on assumptions that normally held in our ancestors' environment. Sometimes we encounter situations where these assumptions don't hold and we fall prey to cognitive illusions. For example, it is commonly known that the frame in which a logical problem is placed determines the effectivity of our judgments.
A final important subject to note is the function of our emotions. Our emotions guide are actions, they are the incentives that lead us to chase pleasure and avoid pain. The objects of pleasure and pain are goals, set by evolution. We enjoy sex because organisms (i.e. our ancestors) that enjoyed sex had more sex and thereby had more offspring than organisms that didn't enjoy sex. We enjoy certain foods because our ancestors enjoyed those foods - and those that didn't had less offspring. In a sense, Hume was right when he wrote "reason is the slave of our passions." Our passions motive us to seek out the things we enjoy and avoid the things we hate.
To summarize: Pinker tries to show that by looking at our psychology as mental organs, consisting of algorithms, that were sculpted by natural selection in the past eons, we have a new paradigm to understand our mind. A paradigm based on two of the most accepted theories in science and one that excludes ideology. Only a realistic understanding of our mental constitution can lead us to appreciate what is good and what should be changed for the better. An informed ethics presupposes evolutionary psychology.
Even though I completely agree with Pinker's message and am interested in evolutionary psychology, I can't really recommend this book to laypeople. It would be better, before reading How the Mind Works, to school yourself in evolutionary biology and psychology, because Pinker's style of explaining is not for the faint hearted; he makes use of many terms that presuppose a lot of prior knowledge about the subjects involved. And a thing that annoyed me is the sheer mass of this book: 660 pages. Some chapters contained 90+ pages, which is way too long (in my opinion).
But I should not end this review on a sour note, this was a pleasant read and value the various insights I gained from this.
On a sidenote: Pinker's treatment of free will and consciousness is confusing. On the one hand, he makes valuable distinctions. So when he deals with consciousness, he makes a distinction between self knowledge, access to information and sentience and explains that the first to senses are in theory explainable by science. This is helpful. On the other hand, Pinker offers no route to answers himself and seems to retreat in a very un-academic mindset with regard to these topics. So in the example of consciousness, even though the first two aforementioned senses are explainable in scientific terms, sentience is not. Even stronger: our mind has been shaped by natural selection to deal with everyday problems and situations, offering the solution to the riddle of sentience not being one of them. In other words: the problem of consciousness is unsolvable in principle and we should not waste any more intellectual effort on this futile search. A very un-scientific mindset. (In 1542 people thought the earth was the centre of the cosmos; in 1543 Copernicus showed the earth to be just another mass of iron orbiting the sun; in the 20th century we discovered that even our sun is not so special: we live in an increasingly expanding universe in which we are just a temporary spec of dust).
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