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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 genera...
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 mo...
impenetrable, repetitive, useless ... did I say I was disappointed?
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 ref...
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
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,...
I finally finished this book. It took me far longer than I care to admit to do so. On at least one occasion I lost interest and put it down for several weeks before coming back to it.I have a hard time putting my finger on exactly why this was the case. It's not that it's bad - in fact, parts of it are absolutely fascinating. It's certainly not the writing; Pinker is quite good (despite a tendency to repeat himself frequently).I think it boiled down to two things for me, with both of them being
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 evo...
"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 c...
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 las...
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...
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...
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 h...
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 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 gre...
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 paralle...
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 rig...
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 cognit...
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, computatio...
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, evolutio...