This was a good book overall, but it did not live up to my expectations, especially in the last few sections, which I felt were more like filler material; which is not to say that they were of little interest in and of themselves. I understand his need to make an argumentation in favor of evolutionary psychology, considering the current political climate and the constant denial of the existence of "human nature" on the extreme left, but I think it simply did not belong in this book.

Apart from the section where the author detailed the human sense of vision, and how the brain processes visual information to build a 3D image of the environment (with all kinds of tricks and assumptions to solve problems that are technically unsolvable), in addition to the introduction of the Computational Theory of Mind, there was little talk of "how the mind works" actually. We learn more in this book about how the human brain might have evolved, and the environmental pressures to which it might have been subjected during that process, as well as the consequences of this evolution on human traits and behavior, than about the modules and processes within the brain that convert sensory data to meaningful information, actions, and qualia.

There are whole sections dedicated to conflict between individuals, groups, sexes, parents and children, and how this might have directed our evolution, but little in the way of an explanation of what the brain is doing as it processes data about one's social standing, social relationships, etc, to generate emotions, actions, reactions and conscious decisions.

The earlier sections about the modular and hierarchical nature of brain structures, and the combinatorial nature of its processes, were interesting as a refresher, but by no means offered any new ideas to me personally. The introduction and argumentation for CTM on the other hand left a greater impact on my intellect, and I'm enthused to learn more about it.

Perhaps Pinker's relative failure in this book (compared to "The Language Instinct") is due to his attempt to tackle subjects outside of his area of expertise.

That being said, it was still a enjoyable read, and was by no means devoid of good insights.

This is a huge book which cannot be skimmed. The basic idea is computational theory of mind rather than neurons, synapse, and chemical reactions. I found the computational sections interesting but really bogged down in the parts where he illustrates his theories on mind biology in terms of natural selection as reserved in the genes rather than any learned or taught via psychological response. "The mind is a neural computer, fitted by natural selection with combinatorial algorithms for causal and probalistic reasoning about plants, animals, objects, and people. It is driven by goal states that served biological fitness in ancestral environments, such as food, sex, safety, parenthood, friendship, status, and knowledge." p.524 What matters most is "mechanism that brings about effects that would increase the number of copies of the genes building the nechanism in the environment in which we evolved." p.526

The cultural references were age appropriate for a boomer and will date this book for younger audiences and in the near future. For example, Bob Dylan, "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose."

A very good book, albeit not the quickest read ever.

I’ve read a few popular science books and have been disappointed when they seem to rely more on anecdote than science -- ok, fine, what I really mean is I can’t stand Malcolm Gladwell. How the Mind Works certainly feels much more solidly founded in science while still maintaining the how-science-fits-into-real-life perspective of a popular science book.

It’s not a perfect book. Given the enormous breadth of the topic that Pinker is attempting to cover, it’s forgivable, but still the book does drift occasionally into generalizations that seem more a subjective (though plausible) opinion than convincing fact. Given the great complexity he describes in the lower-level workings of the human brain, I felt surprised at how often he seemed to be over-simplifying higher-level human psychology; at the the same time, of course, I did realize he couldn’t preface every sentence with, “As a generalization that obviously does’t account for all specific details, ...” All in all, it was quite a good, convincing book that felt comfortingly more bound to science than some others I’ve read.

It's hard to absorb and review a book this big. I think of it as something like a one semester college course. Some parts are very difficult and I can't say I understood them all, and others are just fun. But it's not really "How the Mind Works" in the sense I was looking for. I was hoping to learn how all those neurons, glia, synaps and axons work together to make thoughts and actions happen. That's not this book. This book is more about how natural selection (Pinker uses the word "adaptation" a lot) and the Computational Theory of the Mind result in the capabilities that our brains have, like vision, other senses, and solving problems. Much of the book is thought exercises (however clever) to suss out how a particular brain capability could have resulted in greater reproductive success. Along the way, you get a heavy dose of how amazing the mind is given the difficulty of the problems it can solve almost instantly. The penultimate chapter is all about sex and relationships (and decidedly un-PC), which is fun to read, but really strays from "How the Mind Works". In the last chapter, Pinker tackles, probably as well as anybody, the problems of mental activities that don't seem to have any evolutionary purpose, such as art, music and religion. Lastly, he discusses consciousness, somewhat unsuccessfully in my opinion, but who has ever tackled that one successfully?

This book reminded me a lot of Jarad Diamond's writings, particularly "The World Until Yesterday". Like Pinker, Diamond believes *almost* all behavior and customs must serve some evolutionary purpose, i.e. increase the reproductive success of the practitioners. I can't blame these guys, after all, there is no other coherent scientific theory, but to be truthful, "How the Mind Works" sometimes made me doubt that the theory of evolution explains everything.

I would love for Pinker to update this book. Written 20 years ago, I think he greatly underestimates the eventual capabilities of computers. While I agree that the mind is unlike any current computer, advances in AI, such as language recognition and visual interpretation might steer his thoughts in a different way.