Genealogy Books - How the Mind Works

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Summary: dense read
Comment: this was the first book of steven pinker's that i've read. it was very interesting at times, but the
material was a bit too dense in some parts. it was difficult to glean a point very easily. and not
all of the diagrams were helpful in elucidating whatever the text was trying to say. it was an
okay, long, read. nevertheless, that hasnt discouraged me from tackling pinker's "the language
instinct" next.

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Summary: Going Backwards
Comment: I bought this book to gain insight. Instead I found an alchemist trying to discuss chemistry. I
should have known from the title. We have/are a brain not a mind. Reading this book is painful.
One of his first tasks Pnker undertakes is to criticize behavioral science. He calls it stimulus
response. Behavioral science gives six causes for human behavior:
1. Genetic Endowment />2. Pre-natal chemical environment
3. Post-natal chemical environment
4. Classical
conditioning(Pavlov)
5. Operant conditioning(Skinner)
6. Traumatic factors
Even
Skinnerian conditioning, which he singles out for being stimulus response involves consequences as a
major determinant. Behaviorism is a science that like evolution it is selective. Anyone who calls
this stimulus response shows complete misunderstanding. Pinker then carries on his ignorance by
saying that if a person runs from a burning building it is because they "Believed" they were in
danger. He basically uses what he would believe and puts it in the brain of his example. First of
all he knows nothing of what another person believes. Second thinking a person that would have to
escape any dangerous situation by formulating a belief and then acting on it is just ludicrous. A
brain couldn't evolve to function this way. Beliefs are effects. Belief's are conditioned and
behavior is conditioned. Just because a belief goes along with a behavior doesn't mean it causes it.
Thinking that is superstitious behavior. Our education system is really pathetic. Glad behavioral
techniques that were 100% effective in increasing learning skills and self confidence were shelved
to fund teaching techniques that saw dramatic declines in learning skills and self confidence. Of
course this could only happen in a society where worldviews are conditioned and logic is never
automatic, but Pinker hasn't learned observational skills to recognize this. Back to the example.
Just because you didn't see all the variables that caused the girl to run from the burning building
doesn't mean they don't exist. Your criticism of behaviorism because it can't predict behavior is
so inane it is beyond words. Like people that criticize evolution it is because they have no
understanding. Behaviorism never would claim to predict behavior. There are billions of variables
that determine every unique behavior and the science is a framework to make effective changes
through trial and error. You continue your archaic catalog of already answered criticisms by saying
Skinner said men don't think. He never said this. Thoughts are superfluous. If they were causes
as you claim then what people thought and what they did would be the same. They aren't and never
will. Thoughts are unverbalized speech that are triggered and sometimes go along with behavior. It
is real world stimuli(experiences) and their interaqction with the brain that determines behavior.
If you weren't conditioned to swallow all the cultural BS maybe you could see science always
disproves the presuppositions our culture conditons many to accept. No the Sun doesn't revolve
around the Earth. Yes we are products of our environment. This may be predictably dismissed by a
culture conditioned to shiver at these words, but understanding this is the only way we will ever
make effecdtive, positive changes to improve the human condition. A shame your book is doing
everything one can to set us back hundreds of years. What is your real name? Nim Chimpsky. BTW
your language book is another pathetic exercise in ignorance. B.F. Skinner's book is definitive and
actually creates a philosphy that allows for effective changes. Time will expose your ignorance,
but I am living now, so I want to let everyone know B.F. Skinner was the only person that was right
and did useful work. His science is evolutionarily sound and hope our culture has of making
effective, postive changes. This book is sad.

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Summary: You'd best have some background knowledge
Comment: I first read sections of this book a year ago and was initially somewhat disappointed that it did
not focus on how the mind works via the neurobiological or the physiological approach. This book
rarely mentions specific brain structures or neurotransmitters. Rather, it is a look at the brain
via the computational theory of mind - via the perspective that the brain is an informational
processing organ that is best analyzed via the selection pressures that influenced the reactions
that the brain makes to stimuli. For those who are more interested in specific neurobiological
approaches, one is advised to read "Synaptic Self" (LeDoux) or "The Quest for Consciousness : A
Neurobiological Approach." However, I recently re-read it a week ago and finally appreciated its
significance.

Pinker's book is very rewarding for the person who likes to analyze
complex adaptive systems via means of general principles rather than of specific facts. As a result,
he comments a lot on comparisons between the human mind and both animal minds and "computer minds."
This approach is an excellent approach for generating hypotheses and explanations for human
behavior, even though it does not analyze the specific neurological processes that are intermediate
between stimuli and response. His approach is especially relevant when it comes to the study of
family values and sex, when it comes to the chapter on family values, since it helps explain the
idiosyncrasies associated with complex adaptive systems that must replicate by means of sex. />
Pinker's book does go off numerous off tangents. He has commentary on the "Standard Social
Science Model", he goes off into hypotheses into the reasons why biological organisms have sex, and
he touches on implications of cognitive science. Those are interesting, although they do add to the
length of the book.

The book isn't exactly perfect from my perspective. It would be
nice if he wrote a little about the parts of the brain that underly mental representations and
mental images.

By the way - as for those who are unfamiliar with the definition of a
"complex adaptive system" - read Murray Gell-Mann's "Quark and the Jaguar."

Customer Rating:

Summary: Enjoyable Science
Comment: Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" is the best science book that I have read in my life (aging
boomer). He has an excellent command of the available research in the field and is able to present
it in an engaging style. The scientific understanding of the mind has progressed significantly in
the last 30 years and this books serves as an excellent summary of and guide to the understanding of
these developments. I learned a lot by reading it and I enjoyed it too. What more can one expect
from a book or say about it? Buy it, read it, enjoy it and learn!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Could have/should have been much better
Comment: This is a book by a noted expert in a fascinating area which both could have and should have been
much better.

Generally, reading Steven Pinker at one the same time reminds one both of
Josephus, the First Century Jewish historian and the comedian Dennis Miller. Pinker is like
Josephus because like Josephus Pinker is unnecessarily discursive and Pinker is like Dennis Miller
because one comes away from the experience of listening to him thinking that the guy was more
interested in showing you that he knew of lot of stuff rather than actually trying to inform you
about a lot of stuff.

Here are a couple of for instances:

In discussing
intelligence generally, Pinker segues into a long discussion about Frank Drake and the famous Drake
equation for positing the existence of intelligent life off the planet. In praising Congress for
zero funding the Search for Intelligence Life (SETI), Pinker noted that Drake's equation unnecessary
factored in the inevitable quality of the emergence of intelligent life. Not only was Pinker's
observance an incorrect rendition of Drake's formula but it was also quite to the point of why
Congress zero funded the program.

Congress zero funded the program (like the
Supercolliding Superconductor) because Congress was too sheepish to go to its constituents and tell
them that like military prowess, scientific research runs to the heart of a nation's strength. In
other words, Congress thought like the midevil Chinese when they dismantled the Emporer's fleet. />
In discussing family values, Pinker noted the old saw that people were more at risk of
homocide from their relatives than strangers. Then, when he went on to try and prove his point, he
did so by semantically re-categorizing spouses and significant others as "non blood relations."
Throughout his discussion, it seemed as if Pinker was more intent on seeming clever than providing
actual, on the ground analysis.

And indeed, these limitations aren't necessarily
critical because Josephus is great history reading and Dennis Miller at least has the potential to
be entertaining. Even Pinker himself, writing in this same, style, produced a great book when he
wrote "The Blank Slate."

But Josephus and Miller and Blank Slate are different because
in this book, a book which purports to describe the actual workings of the human mind, there is a
need for the author to be clear, cogent and to the point.

How DOES the mind work? How
did it evolutionarily come to be? What are its evolutionary objectives? What systems does it use
to carry out those objectives? Are there ways in which it can be decieved? How? Why?
/>Like the articulation of a scientific theory is improved by it's elegance, books expositing on
scientific matters must needs themselves be elegant.

And so, for those truly interested
in this topic, I would recommend the following list of books:

1) "The Selfish Gene" --
Richard Dawkins' 1976 book remains a classic exposition on contemporary gene theory and it's
implications for human life;

2) "The Red Queen" -- Matt Ridley produced a wonderful,
up to the date book detailing sexual mating and its implications;

3) "Before the Dawn"
-- Nicholas Wade's 2006 book likewise provides up to the date research and insight not only the fact
of human evolution but the fact that human evolution is still continuing apace even today and
how;

4) "Phantoms in the Brain" -- V.S. Ramashandran has produced a wonderful, highly
readable book about the different ways in which human cognition can falter;

5) "A
Brief Introduction to Consciousness" -- Again, V.S. Ramashandran plums the depths of human
consciousness and in so doing produced a highly readable and eloquent survey of the mind;
/>6) "Consciousness Explained" -- Dan Dennett's exposition on the workings of the brain easily
rivals and exceeds that presented by Pinker. True, Dennett may ultimately be proved to be wrong but
at least he presents a cohesive and credible theory of cognition;

7) "Darwin's
Dangerous Idea" -- Again, Dan Dennett is wonderful at bringing complicated concepts to life with
his unique brand of brilliant insight;

8) "How We Love" -- Helen Fisher's book on
human attraction and mating practices places an appropriate literary focus on humanity's actual
genetic focus, namely: reproduction;

9) "The Origins of Virtue" -- Again Matt Ridley
has tackled a significant topic rendering it both accessible and relevant. Why do people cooperate?
Because it's in their self interest to do so and Ridley's book shows one how; and finally />
10) "Religion Explained" -- Pascal Boyer takes a nettlesome problem and uses actual
scientific method to arrive at a solution. Like Dennett, Boyer's findings may ultimately be either
wrong or just incomplete but again like good science is supposed to it provides an explanation and
not just mere pedantic puffery.

By no means should this review be construed as a screed
against Pinker. As stated, his Blank Slate was a remarkable master work and underscored the
importance of academic tolerance. However, it's because Pinker is capable of such quality that he
can legitimately be expected to have produced better.

In other words, an eagle is most
striking in flight among the clouds...not standing on the ground in a field of turkeys.

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