There are no concrete explanations for many of these phenomena, and Pinker attempts to synthesize what is known as consistently as possible to support his arguments regarding the origins and purpose of each. His writing on these subjects involves more speculation. In the chapters that follow, Pinker addresses complex aspects of human behavior and life such as emotions, friendship, and reasoning. He posits that visual illusions can be partially explained by evolution, and in Chapter 5 he discusses how the mind forms ideas based on the information it receives. He goes on the introduce the concepts of intelligence and consciousness, and he argues that the current design of the human mind is the result of natural selection and has been shaped by the surrounding environment.īeginning in Chapter 4, Pinker examines more abstract mental processes, such as vision, knowledge, learning, and ideas. The focus is on the computational theory of mind, which Pinker believes is important in explaining of how the physical brain leads to the human mind. He presents his definition of the mind and how it is connected to yet distinct from the brain-essentially, the mind is the activity of the brain. In the first four chapters, he presents basic information on how the brain is structured and how it functions. This structure mirrors one of the themes of the book, which focuses on the iterative way we learn, starting from what we know and building increased knowledge.

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.Pinker begins the book by discussing neurons and basic processes, later moving on to more complex ideas, such as emotions, and finishing with sections devoted to ideas he doesn’t feel even his approach can address, like free will.

deserves the superlatives that are lavished on him.” The arguments in the book are as bold as its title. And he does it with the wit that prompted Mark Ridley to write in the New York Times Book Review, “No other science writer makes me laugh so much. 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. 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. You can read this before How the Mind Works PDF EPUB full Download at the bottom.

Here is a quick description and cover image of book How the Mind Works written by Steven Pinker which was published in 1997–. Brief Summary of Book: How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

How the mind works by steven pinker