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Topic: How the Mind Works

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	How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker critically reviewed By Colin McGinn
		The dominant picture of mind since the Renaissance--it is common to classical empiricism, which embraced consciousness, and modern behaviorism, which eschewed it--is the tabula rasa: the blank ledger upon which the environment leaves its trace as the mind is given whatever structure and content it finally possesses.
		Originally, the mind is conceived to be neutral, void, unbiased, plastic, undifferentiated--a mere vacuum awaiting the rush of sensory experience.
		This is the general picture defended by Steven Pinker in How the Mind Works, a kind of general theory of the special theory that he defended in The Language Instinct.
	www.2think.org /htmw_review.shtml (3592 words)

	Mind Encyclopedia Article @ HigherPower.org (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-29)
		Pre-scientific theories, which were rooted in theology, concentrated on the relationship between the mind and the soul, the supposed supernatural or divine essence of the human person.
		However, the view that the human mind is of a nature or essence somehow different from, and higher than, the mere operations of the brain, continues to be widely held.
		Although Freud did not deny that the mind was a function of the brain, he held the mind has, as it were, a mind of its own, of which we are not conscious, which we cannot control, and which can be accessed only though psychoanalysis (particularly the interpretation of dreams).
	higherpower.org /encyclopedia/Mind (1380 words)

	How the Mind Works - Reading Technology and the Brain
		While the brain works "whole to parts", we learn to read in a way that encourages an opposite approach-"parts to whole." We start to read one letter, one blend of syllables, one word at a time, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph.
		The PhotoReading whole mind system can be summed up as a protocol for using the two powerful capabilities of the brain that you already possess: 1) vast nonconscious storage capacity, and 2) a processing mechanism capable of nonconsciously acquiring information at tremendously accelerated rates.
		PhotoReading Instructors have worked for nearly two decades delivering powerful enhancements to reading speed and comprehension, while simultaneously ensuring a profound benefit in the lives of all who use it.
	www.photoreading.com /howthemindworks.asp (1029 words)

	How the Mind Works (John's Book Pages) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-29)
		The early chapters of How the Mind Works are slow reading; they discuss the basics of evolution, neural networks, how the mind differs from computers, and other low-level details.
		I don't have a good feel for how well Pinker's ideas are accepted in the cognitive science community, but he presents them clearly and doesn't seem to be unduly biased.
		How the Mind Works is very good pop science; Pinker knows what he's talking about, cites his sources, and explains complex concepts clearly, using lots of examples.
	books.regehr.org /reviews/howthemindworks.html (201 words)

	How the Mind Works - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		How the Mind Works is a book by American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, published in 1996.
		The book explains the human mind's poorly understood functions and quirks in evolutionary terms.
		Using evolutionary psychology first articulated by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, Pinker covers subjects as diverse as vision, emotion, feminism, and, in the final chapter, "the meaning of life."
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/How_the_Mind_Works (133 words)

	Mind & Life Institute
		Investigating the Mind: Exchanges between Buddhism and Biobehavioral Science is co-sponsored by the McGovern Institute at MIT and the Mind and Life Institute.
		In this final session, we are interested in putting together the pieces: in understanding how both traditions understand the functional interrelations between attention, imagery, and emotion; and, more broadly, what each tradition understands the "mind" to be, and on what empirical basis.
		Buddhism and western science are both committed to empirical investigations of the mind, but for reasons that are embedded in apparently quite different ethical and philosophical traditions.
	www.mindandlife.org /conf03.html (1341 words)

	Steven Pinker - Books - How the Mind Works
		He explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life.
		The mind, he writes, is a system of "organs of computation" that allowed our ancestors to understand and outsmart objects, animals, plants, and each other.
		And he challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, that creativity springs from the unconscious, that nature is good and modern society corrupting, and that art and religion are expressions of our higher spiritual yearnings.
	pinker.wjh.harvard.edu /books/htmw/index.html (350 words)

	Dualism and Mind [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		Substance dualists typically argue that the mind and the body are composed of different substances and that the mind is a thinking thing that lacks the usual attributes of physical objects: size, shape, location, solidity, motion, adherence to the laws of physics, and so on.
		While imprisoned, the mind is compelled to investigate the truth by means of the body and is incapable (or severely hindered) of acquiring knowledge of the highest, eternal, unchanging, and non-perceptible objects of knowledge, the Forms.
		Since the mind, construed along Cartesian lines, leads to solipsism (that is, to the epistemological belief that one's self is the only existence that can be verified and known), it is better to operationalize the mind and define mental states behaviorally, functionally, or physiologically.
	www.iep.utm.edu /d/dualism.htm (10531 words)

	How the Mind Works
		The mind that masters itself creates its own ideas, thoughts and desires through the original use of its own imaging faculty, while the mind that does not master itself forms its thoughts and desires after the likeness of impressions received through the senses; and is therefore controlled by the conditions from which those impressions come.
		How the Mind Works is a book of exceptional value, and is of vital interest to anyone who wants to live their life fully and completely – more health, more wealth, and more happiness.
		When the mind discovers that its powers are inexhaustible and that its faculties and talents can be developed to the very highest degree imaginable, and to any degree beyond that, the fear of failure will entirely disappear.
	www.authorhouse.com /BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~19953.aspx (892 words)

	How the Mind Works
		How the Mind Works is an attempt to answer those kinds of questions, using three key ideas: computation, evolution, and specialization.
		Botanists and zoologists who do field work with hunter-gatherers are often astonished to learn that hunter-gatherers have remarkably de- tailed knowledge about local plants and animals and that their names for these plants and animals usually match the Linnaean genus or species of the professional biologists.
		Finally the idea of specialization--that the mind is a complex system composed of many parts--holds out the hope that some parts of the mind, those with the longest view of the future, can figure out ways to outsmart the other parts.
	www.kurzweilai.net /articles/art0013.html?printable=1 (5035 words)

	washingtonpost.com: How the Mind Works
		The mind is never so wonderfully concentrated as when it turns to love, and there must be intricate calculations that carry out the peculiar logic of attraction, infatuation, courtship, coyness, surrender, commitment, malaise, philandering, jealousy, desertion, and heartbreak.
		Any explanation of how the mind works that alludes hopefully to some single master force or mind-bestowing elixir like "culture," "learning," or "self-organization" begins to sound hollow, just not up to the demands of the pitiless universe we negotiate so successfully.
		Its key idea can be captured in a sentence: The mind is a system of organs of computation, designed by natural selection to solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their foraging way of life, in particular, understanding and outmaneuvering objects, animals, plants, and other people.
	www.washingtonpost.com /wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/howthemindworks.htm (8955 words)

	Virus of the Mind: Introduction: Crisis of the Mind
		Mind viruses cloud your future and steer you along a career path that supports their agenda, not your quality of life.
		Successfully programming your mind to believe that you prefer that brand, advertising agencies are among the most brazen and calculating of the mind virus instigators.
		One reason is the ever-evolving army of mind viruses, taking a greater and greater share of your mind, diverting you from your pursuit of happiness and due to have an even greater effect on the next generation.
	www.memecentral.com /vmintro.htm (3165 words)

	Books (etc) We Like
		Suppose we have a complete and perfect understanding of a neuron on a celluar and molecular level, as he pointed out in the next few pages it is the interconnectiveness (my own invention to summarize the vastly complicated neural networks) that might be more important than any single cell.
		A mental life is the result of my mind, and it is utterly unexplainable in most cases.
		I contented myself with how he substantiated his research, albeit there is a sense of having completely arrived with a comprhensive overview of the human mind and subsequent behavior.
	bookswelike.net /isbn/0393318486 (1860 words)

	The Mind as Conflict and Compromise Formation
		The structural theory divides the mind into agencies (= structures) that are distinguished from one another not just on the basis of being opposed to one another in situations of mental conflict, but additionally, and importantly, on the basis of having different relations to external reality and to the drives.
		Day-to-day work with patients is mostly concerned with analyzing and interpreting the components of psychic conflict.
		As for the ego's integrative function, a regard for logic and coherence is not, in fact, an innate characteristic of the mind, as the structural theory assumes it to be.
	users.rcn.com /brill/egoid.html (5264 words)

	HOW THE MIND WORKS (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-29)
		HOW THE MIND WORKS by Steven Pinker, W. Norton, 1997
		We don't poke fun at the eagle for its clumsiness on the ground or fret that the eye is not very good at hearing, because we know that a design can excel at one challenge only by compromising at others.
		Our bafflement at the mysteries of the ages may have been the price we paid for a combinatorial mind that opened up a world of words and sentences, of theories and equations, of poems and melodies, of jokes and stories, the very things that make a mind worth having.
	home.earthlink.net /~denmartin/hmw.html (301 words)

	Reading List: How the Mind Works
		One of the world's leading cognitive scientists rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection.
		In this extraordinary bestseller, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists, does for the rest of the mind what he did for language in his 1994 book, The Language Instinct.
		Pinker rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection, and challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting.
	www.asimovlaws.com /reading/2004/07/how_the_mind_wo.html (197 words)

	Ahouse and Berwick on Pinker's "How the Mind Works" (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-29)
		The unhappy results of these efforts to marry cognitive science to an adaptationist brand of evolutionary biology are a credulous conception about how the mind works (misrepresented as scientific consensus), an uncritical genetic determinism, and a borrowed evolutionary biology used not to generate hypotheses, but to rationalize Pinker's own opinions.
		HTMW relies on readers' willingness to supply examples from their own lives and takes direction from evolutionary anthropologist Robert Trivers's calculus of "parental investment" and I'll-scratch-your-back-and-you-scratch-mine "reciprocal altruism." Performing these calculations is difficult.
		HTMW does not suggest how to show that mental modules are independent, or that they segregate in the way that, say, Mendel showed how the green and wrinkled peas assorted independently.
	www.cs.rice.edu /~ian/Manifestoes/pinker-crit.html (6801 words)

	How the Mind Works - PowerBookSearch!
		In this book, Steven Pinker explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life.
		The discussion is thus split between describing how the computation of specific tasks might actually work, as the chapter on vision does superbly, and less computationally demonstrable and thus less concrete discussions of how emotions are adapted to group relations, or of the sort of data one considers when choosing a mate.
		He brings together two theories: the computational theory of mind, which says that the processing of information, including desires and beliefs, is the fundamental activity of the brain, and the theory of natural selection.
	www.powerbooksearch.com /booksearch0641613261.html (819 words)

	How The Mind Works (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-29)
		Innateness means that humans are born with built in mechanisms as opposed to having a blank slate.
		There are a few misunderstandings of innateness such as: "If it’s not present at birth, then it must be learned from the environment" which clearly is not true by the example of puberty, instead, many of the innate properties of the mind are merely learning mechanisms, and the environment determines what they learn.
		Precisely because they work so well because they process information so effortlessly and automatically we tend to be blind to their existence.
	ruccs.rutgers.edu /seminar/spring98/lectures/scholl/scholl.html (527 words)

	[How the mind works] Canadian Psychology - Find Articles
		Reviewed by KEITH K. Several epic works of psychology have been influential in the cognitive psychology of the 20th century: works by William James, Jean Piaget, and Wilhelm Wundt come to mind immediately.
		These are shock tactics: How the Mind Works is written in a style meant to awaken or offend drowsing undergraduates in a psychology classroom.
		So an explanation which invokes inverse optics, inverse genetics, etc., does not begin to explore the bounds of what the mind is, or how adaptable the mind may be.
	findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qa3711/is_199908/ai_n8869142 (1087 words)

	A Tool for How the Mind Works
		For those of you who aren't familiar with mind mapping, it is a thinking and brainstorming technique made famous by Tony Buzan and Barry Buzan and described in their book "The Mind Map® Book".
		Mind mapping is a better solution because it works more like your mind works, and it allows you to incorporate visual cues (images, colors, shapes, icons) in your map.
		Mind mapping is not for everyone, but for those who really need to "supercharge" their brainstorming and thinking about everything from E-commerce site planning, to writing, to note taking, I can see Mind Manager 6 becoming as much a part of your standard office suite as your word processor and spreadsheet.
	grokdotcom.com /topics/mindmapping.htm (1187 words)

	Pinker, How the Mind Works
		Moreover, the mind is not a single, general-purpose computer, but a collection of them, of "mental modules" or "mental organs," specialized as to subject matter, each with its own particular learning mechanism ("an instinct to acquire an art," in a phrase Pinker lifts from Darwin).
		This modularity is evident in studying how children learn (recall Pinker's background in language acquisition), and also from tracing the effects of brain lesions which, if sufficiently localized, impair specific abilities depending on where the brain is hurt, and leave others intact.
		Other mental organs are postulated for other sorts of perception; for intuitive physics; for numbers; for "folk biology"; and of course for dealing with the most important organisms in the environment of a political animal, its fellow political animals.
	cscs.umich.edu /~crshalizi/reviews/how-the-mind-works (1092 words)

	Kenan Malik's review of 'How the Mind Works' by Steven Pinker
		If the mind is the product of natural selection, he asks, 'why should we expect it comprehend all mysteries and to grasp all truths?' Among the mysteries that he expects not to understand are consciousness, sentience and free will.
		By specifying these rules, and understanding how they are implemented, we can begin to learn how the mind works.
		How the Mind Works is for most part an intelligent and stimulating work.
	www.kenanmalik.com /reviews/pinker_mind.html (1950 words)

	The Blind Programmer (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-29)
		"How hot is the core of the sun?" and "When was the last crater on the moon formed?" would be problems in this sense: we might not ever find out the answers but they are at least theoretically available.
		How did ought emerge from a universe of particles and planets, genes and bodies?" Odd that Pinker has chosen the plot-line from Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment to illustrate his point, for it was precisely this epileptic Russian novelist who saw that without God everything is permitted.
		It became a classic—yes, even in the Darwinian jungle-world of theater critics—because the spectator sees the play and is horrified at the idea of dispatching his fiancée to a nunnery, thereby making her forfeit her chance to take a plunge in the gene pool, and this horror saves the spectator’s genes for posterity as well.
	www.firstthings.com /ftissues/ft9803/articles/oakes.html (4672 words)

	DrumNet - How The Mind Works
		Pinker's goal throughout How the Mind Works is to convince us that, in fact, an evolutionary approach is central to "reverse engineering" the mind.
		Pinker's primary goal is to explain human thought via the "computational theory of mind," a fairly recent recent model that treats the brain as a collection of specialized modules, each of which does something that at one time or another was evolutionarily useful.
		If the mind has a complex innate structure, that does not mean that learning is unimportant....It's not that the claim that there is an interaction between innate structure and learning (or between heredity and environment, nature and nurture, biology and culture) is literally wrong.
	members.cox.net /kdrum/Howmindworks.htm (2167 words)

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