How the Author Works

Psychology does not just mean talking to a shrink and experiments with birds and mice anymore. That was what Steven Pinker thought of the subject when he entered college, just as the public in general still sees it, and how I believed until 12th grade. Pinker there discovered the future of the science of the mind, the cognitive revolution, and was sucked in.

_How the Mind Works_, Pinker's attempt to explain in laymen's terms the current understanding of the mind, is an absorbing book of staggering proportions. Weighing in at over 600 pages, the conceptual valleys which Pinker guides you through are breathtaking and relevant to your own life. Did you ever wonder how exactly those "Stereograms" work? This is the only source that explains it well in non technical terms. In what format do you store long-term memories? How are food preferences created? What is the purpose of facial expressions in emotions? Pinker explains clearly and honestly the most up-to-date answers to these and other questions.

Pinker's tools in answering these and many other questions is the science of evolutionary psychology. It is based on two theories, the computational theory of mind, and the biological theory of evolution. The computational theory of mind says that the mind exists as the sum of all of the information it processes, including emotional information, NOT that our brains are simply computers. That whenever you choose to do anything, there can be as many personal, emotional, physiological, environmental, and genetic influences as you can imagine are relevant to your problem. The theory of evolution, as most of you probably know, describes how competition between organisms coupled with random mutation over many, many generations leads to permanent, important changes. When the two theories are combined, the result is evolutionary psychology, the study of how the human mind was designed to deal with the environment in which we lived, and how the primitive brain functions in the modern world.

The chapters are very well organized and the writing is involving. The first chapter, the introduction, is Pinker's attention grabber, as it entrances the reader with questions about the defining characteristics of humans--"what would it take to create a robot that would pass for a person?" The next three chapters are about technical matters, the two guiding theories of the science and on the third on vision, though they are still very readable, thanks to Pinker's conversational style. Lastly, _How the Mind Works_ is concluded with chapters on more personal subjects like social interaction and emotion. Along with the standard index is a by-page footnote directory, directing any interested readers to any of the hundreds of original sources from which Pinker created this comprehensive volume.

Very important to the understanding of this and any science is a theme that runs throughout the book: that science and morals have different purposes, and must not be confused. Science only predicts how people act, not how they should. Some argue that an understanding of what, if anything, is "genetic," necessarily makes those things natural and therefore unpunishable, and that science should not ask those types of questions for that reason. Again and again Pinker comes back to this and simlar issues, always asking the reader to think independently and intelligently on such central moral and personal issues.

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