How the Mind Works

Trying to explain "how the mind works" is a big job. Steven Pinker has convinced himself that he's up to the task. It's a thickish book, and the text is dense. I think the earlier chapters are particularly heavy-going; I often had to put the book down for a week or two before I felt ready to come back to it.

Pinker steps through practically every facet of humankind and society and uses theories of evolutionary biology to try and explain how it all makes sense. As he progresses through vision, family, allies and enemies, music, humour, art and religion, I found his reasoning more and more vague and dissatisfying. As he says himself, maybe it's not possible to use Darwin's hypotheses to explain some things (like why we enjoy laughing at a good joke). It's not possible to be an expert in every field, but this seems to be the attitude. I was particularly irked by his use of some religious quotations out of context to support his argument, and - as a musician - I thought his chapter on music fell a little flat (pun intended).

It is an interesting (if self-indulgent) book, written by an obviously highly intelligent man, and I'm glad I came across it. Just remember to read it with a grain of salt.

This is simply an excellent book. Steven Pinker has masterfully taken on a very complex subject and made it into an enjoyable read. It truly makes one "think" about how ones mind works. It makes one appreciate the value of things we take for granted, like our ability to see, think, talk, walk, desire, feel, react, etc. It's philosohpy, science, psychology, sociology all come together to explain issues that are very complex and difficult for many of us to get our minds around. This book or at least parts of it should be taught in high schools. I'm sure it will have amazing impact and be an eye openner for many of our youth. Job well done, Mr. Pinker!

Two ideas run throughout this attempt to answer some very big questions: how the human mind got the way it is, how it works, and how people directed by minds interact with each other in society. One idea is "don't ignore the data": Pinker's explanations of how vision and perception work build on what experiments show, and are careful not to add anything based on what might make sense, but is not borne out by the data. The other idea, related, is that Darwinian evolution is not, as it's often understood, "survival of the fittest". It is something much more boring and precise. Random genetic changes, whose performance, expressed in a human being's life, lead to actually producing fewer children, die out. Genetic changes that lead to people who have more children, survive. At any given generation, the more "fit" genes are more common. Perhaps you can identify the people with those more common, "fit" genes, perhaps you can't.

Pinker takes these two ideas and does pretty well at explaining a whole lot of human perception and behavior. But from there to any conclusions about how we should behave, or even how we should best live with ourselves and each other, is way out of scope. So if you're prepared to read an interesting book, say "Aha!" a few times, but to keep yourself in check about applying what you've learned, then go for it.

Pinker's book is comprehensive and challenging to read. The chapter on the 'mind's eye' is difficult to understand and I will return to it many times to grasp some of the many insights it contains. The chapter on 'good ideas' is very useful and informative. This is a book I will return to many times. I suspect that there are not many people that have read the book in it's entirety as it contains many sentences that have to be parsed to understand. But, like anything worthwhile some thought has to be applied to get a return.

For a guy who specializes in language, Pinker is an awful writer. And this is supposed to be for general audiences? Yeah, it's cute, and sometimes funny, and full of anecdotes, but jeez, "How the Mind Works"? I don't think so. If this is how HIS mind works, then he's a confusing fellow. The book goes from the intricate to the simple, and not in a straightforward manner either (shouldn't it be the other way around?). I came very close to putting this thing down after two-three chapters, but forced myself to carry on to the end. He's a computational theorist -- the mind is like a computer, the computer is an analog for the mind. No, no, and no. Here is where I get angry with Pinker... someone suggested elsewhere to read Gerald Edelman's book, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind, if you really want the deep skinny on how the mind (probably) works. So I did. It was fantastic (a little tough going at times, but he takes you by the hand and walks you through the intricate neurological stuff, like a good teacher should). Anyway, it was written five years before Pinker's, and Edelman is a Nobel Laureate, and damn if Pinker didn't use a number of his examples, but NEVER EVEN ACKNOWLEDGED THAT EDELMAN EXISTED, much less cited, referenced, or mentioned his (better by far) work! (By the way, is it coincidental that Edelman is dead-set against a computational model of the mind, and clearly explains why. I highly recommend you read him, especially if Pinker left you unsatisfied.) Now, in defense of Pinker, his book was one of the best (no kidding - that's why it got an extra star) expositions on the evolution of cognition and behavior that I've ever read, and THAT's what he should have put in the title, like "How and Why Cognition / Behavior Evolved" (but that wouldn't sell as many books now, would it?). (By the way, Edelman also wrote a book called Neural Darwinism that I'm looking forward to reading.) After reading Edelman, I felt I had been duped by Pinker (What a Stinker!).