Book review
How The Mind Works
Pinker explains the mind through interacting processes and increasingly complex forms of learning. A useful account, with questions about the suggestion that consciousness may be beyond human understanding.
How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker presents his views on how the mind works. When I reviewed the 1997 book in 2020, I found its ideas relevant and thought much of its neuroscience aligned with what I understood then.
Going by my own memory, the book argues that we learn from combining smaller pieces into larger structures. At least, that is what works on the computational/neuron level. But, the same also goes for learning bigger concepts and also how smaller modules led us learn/enjoy other (more complex) things (like music).
He ends the book with something I don’t fully grog yet, that we are not made to understand consciousness. That from our perspective we can’t really. I do get this if we are talking about an intuitive psychologist (just you and me), but we (humanity) also get/compute prime numbers into the millions. So couldn’t we also figure this out by writing stuff down and learning from the work of others? Time will tell.
Chapter 1-3 Basic brain structures
Chapter 4 Abstract mental processes
Chapter 5 Ideas (see, going up each time)
Chapter 6-7 Emotions, reasoning, friendship
Chapter 8 Art, music, humour