Scientifica

Stephen Pinker's "How the mind works" is one of those rare books which i have had a urge to finish - almost an obsession by the end of it. There were so may times that i thought "that is exactly what i agree with". It is an intellectual treat. One of the refeshing things that Pinker brings to the table is the marrying of so many disciplines - genetic evolution , psychology, anthropology, and mathematics. What i want to do here is to quickly articulate Pinker's core messages and my own observations.

• Pinker is an evolutionary psychologist) and basically presents us with a model of the mind where he says that our brains are both 'computational' and a product of 'natural selection'. (I am a darwinist and basically believe in the modern theory of evolution.). So this is no surprise.

• There is no moral direction of evolution (from simple to complex etc.). Evolution came about by mutations in the gene pool and only those mutations that were beneficial survived. The central message in the book is clarity on the meaning of the selfish Gene. The fascinating insight is that it not that the gene is selfish - not the organism that is inhabiting it. The gene is just interested in making copies of itslef and hence endowns the agents (the organism) with several things that aid it. The genes embed in us those traits that make it most conducive to make copies (reproduce). Quite a few things - lik Emotions (including love), comutational ability, the ability to catch freeloaders etc. are some of the things that the genes have embedded in us to aid our reproductive and survival goals.Our minds are fashioned by the problems that our ancestors had in surviving and have been shaped and sculpted in the environment of foraging that our human ancestors spent 99 % of their time.

• The evolutionary past shows that men and women are different based on the different genetic goals that they have. The goal of men's reproductive sucess is to have sex with several women. The reproductive success of women (read passing her genes) does not alter based on the number of sexual partners. Also women invest much more in child-rearing than men, they want men to provide them with safety, security and co-operation in child bearing. Essentially the genetic goals of men and women diverge and hence the different motivations. Marriage is an institution formed to guarantee that men will willingly give up the reproductic choice of having several partners and assist in child bearing. The women accepts this in return of exclusive sexual access to the man. Love is the emotion defense to blunt the reproductively-logical view of having several partners.
  

• The same theory is valid to explain why men are kindly towards their kin. The kin's genes are shared more by the incumbent and hence we are more concerned about their welfare. Consequently nepotism and altrusim towards our kin.

• Every entity (including children) act in their self-interest. The bond between parent and child is not the perfect-unselfish bond of popular imagination. The conflict starts from the womb and continues later.
  

• Stephen also dismisses the dichotomy between emotion and the intellect. According to him, emotions are what direct us to 'higher order goals'. Intellect is the process of figuring out a series of sub-goals (and the most optimal way of reaching the higher goal). There is no dichotomy between the two. Behaviour is a product of peoples's goals and beliefs.
  

The book rambles a little bit on neural networks, explaining sight and how we form language - and these parts can be skipped. The real force of the book is the focus on evolutionary psychology - and the demise of the schools of conditioning (pavlov), unconscious (freud), behaviourism (skinner). The force is most persuasive in arguing that our brains cannot be dissociated from the long baggae of evolution we carry...