I know the book has definite shortcomings. For one, it is mostly second and third hand information, that is, he relates different experiments and different theories that he agrees with and tries less (thought he does try) to bring diverging viewpoints into the discussion. Secondly, the book is indebted to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene from which he draws most of his conclusions in evolutionary genetics and the relevant experiments which make up half of the book (the second half). And finally, the book betrays its age, as current advances in computer pattern recognition are way beyond the limits of what he envisaged back in 1997.

However, the book is based on something else which is, I think, Pinker's most important contribution. This is the computational theory of mind, which he painstakingly tries to explain, along with the concepts associated with computation. Less generally accepted, but very stimulating for me, were the discussions on evolutionary psychology and (to a lesser extent) evolutionary development. The data to support these claims are less than concrete and draw different conclusions in different theoretical frameworks, but to me the conclusions are satisfying answers (so you can say that this is mysticism I can relate to) and hold the promise of future discoveries which can either confirm them or make changes to them.

3.5/5.

The book has really interesting things to say about the mind when it comes to things like vision, memory, social dynamics, arts and consciousness. I felt the first half of the book was a drag. There were a lot of places where analogies or explanations about computations the brain does were augmented with cultural references which I didn't care about or didn't understand. I thought that it muddied the point that was attempted to being made and didn't help me understand the overall structure of the chapter.

The second half was an easier read since there isn't much of the computation explanation going on but, is still riddled with cultural references.

This book is a little harder to comprehend than other Pinker books... I will not recommend it as a neuroscience primer. Incognito by David Eagleman is so much better.

In order to understand ourselves and others in a meaningful and accurate way, we need to be informed on how the human mind works. Steven Pinker lucidly explains what we can know about how the mind works and why it happens to work the way it does. The explanations he presents are supported by fascinating experiments and observations from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, biology and anthropology.

Reading this book requires a fair bit of grinding, but I think that some people who persist will find it deeply rewarding and satisfying. The paradigm presented in this book is interesting.