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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... machine must solve a problem called inverse optics. Ordinary optics is the branch of physics that allows one to predict how an object with a certain shape, material, and illumination projects the mosaic of colors we call the retinal ...
... machine, and the disk you insert into it. Neither can be ignored. These statements are true but useless—so blankly ... machines, the metaphors of a mixture of two ingredients, like a martini, or a battle between matched forces, like a ...
... machine (like a loose distributor cable in a car) can bring the machine to a halt. The genetic assembly instructions for a mental organ do not specify every connection in the brain as if they were a wiring schematic for a Heathkit radio ...
... the device was designed to accomplish. We do not understand the olive-pitter until we catch on that it was designed as a machine for pitting olives rather than as a paperweight or wrist-exerciser. The goals of 42 HOW THE MIND WORKS.
... machines, like an electric motor and a gasoline engine, the new pastiche would not specify a working machine at all. Natural selection is a homogenizing force within a species; it eliminates the vast majority of macroscopic design ...