How the Mind Works"A model of scientific writing: erudite, witty, and clear." —New York Review of Books In this Pulitzer Prize finalist and national bestseller, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness? How the Mind Works synthesizes the most satisfying explanations of our mental life from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and other fields to explain what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and contemplate the mysteries of life. This edition of Pinker's bold and buoyant classic is updated with a new foreword by the author. |
From inside the book
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... asking for directions? Because our male ancestors might have been killed if they approached a stranger. What purpose does music serve? It brings the community together. Why did happiness evolve? Because happy people are pleasant to be ...
... asked, “Adultery: Is It in Our Genes?” The question makes no sense because neither adultery nor any other behavior can be in our genes. Conceivably a desire for adultery can be an indirect product of our genes, but the desire may be ...
... asked, and is finding answers to, the deepest questions about life, such as how life arose, why there are cells, why there are bodies, why there is sex, how the genome is structured, why animals interact socially, and why there is ...
... asked an appeals court to reduce his sentence for rape and murder because he had committed his crimes under the influence of pornography. The Pornography-MadeMe-Do-It Defense is an irony for the schools of feminism that argue that ...
... the episode was much discussed in my pre-teen critics' circle. (Why didn't he just take her head? asked one commentator.) Our pathos came both from sympathy with Corry for his loss and from the sense that a sentient. 59 how.2.qxd.