Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human MindPsychology professor Gary Marcus explores how evolution has affected—and altered—the functioning of the human brain in Kluge. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice How is it that we can recognize photos from our high school yearbook decades later, but cannot remember what we ate for breakfast yesterday? And why are we inclined to buy more cans of soup if the sign says Limit 12 Per Customer rather than Limit 4 Per Customer? In Kluge, psychology professor Gary Marcus argues convincingly that our minds are not as elegantly designed as we may believe. The imperfections result from a haphazard evolutionary process that often proceeds by piling new systems on top of old ones—and those systems don’t always work well together. The end product is a "kluge," a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. Taking us on a tour of the essential areas of human experience—memory, belief, decision making, language, and happiness—Marcus unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the evolution of the human mind and simultaneously sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature. “Informative and engaging.” —New York Times–bestselling author Steven Pinker “Invigorating fun . . . one of those unexpected analogies that helps us look at everything afresh.” —New York Times Book Review “[A] fresh evolutionary perspective.” —New Scientist |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Memory | 18 |
3 Belief | 40 |
4 Choice | 69 |
5 Language | 95 |
6 Pleasure | 123 |
7 Things Fall Apart | 144 |
8 True Wisdom | 161 |
Back Matter | 177 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adaptive ambiguity ancestral system anchoring and adjustment asked automatically average behavior beliefs better brain can’t chance Chimpanzee choice Chomsky Christmas truce cognitive cognitive dissonance confirmation bias consider context contextual memory costs creatures decisions deliberative system depression disorders doesn’t drive emotional engineers Esperanto evaluate evidence evolution evolutionary evolutionary psychologists evolved example Experimental fact genes goals happens happy human mind Journal of Personality Kahneman kluge language less linguists logic Loglan Loglan Institute mean mental motivated reasoning nature ourselves people’s percent perfect Personality and Social perspective Pew Research Center phonation pleasure postal-code memory precisely prefrontal cortex Press problem question rational recent recursion reflexive system remember schizophrenia seems sense sentence Social Psychology sociopathy sort sound species Steven Pinker subjects television tell tend theory there’s things tion vulnerable What’s words York