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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... human mind. I will try to explain what the mind is, where it came from, and how it lets us see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion, and philosophy. On the way I will try to throw light on distinctively ...
... humans solve as we see and walk and plan and make it through the day are far more challenging than landing on the moon or sequencing the human genome. Nature, once again, has found ingenious solutions that human engineers cannot yet ...
... human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as ...
... human behavior we take for granted, is a challenging engineering problem! But then, so are the kinder, gentler motives. How would you design a robot to obey Asimov's injunction never to allow a human being to come to harm through ...
... human mind must somehow have escaped the evolutionary process. Evolution, they think, can fabricate only stupid instincts and fixed action patterns: a sex drive, an aggression urge, a territorial imperative, hens sitting on eggs and ...