HOW THE MIND WORKS
Steven Pinker
W. W. Norton & Co., 1999
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
• Understand a synthesis of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology
• Use “reverse engineering” to look at how natural selection shaped mental abilities when humans were hunter-gatherers
• Understand how information is used and stored now
• Learn how early man used the mental modules natural selection to solve problems became the bases of perception, reasoning, emotion, social relations, the arts and religion
• Learn how reasoning was developed by the use of good vision, group living, free hands, and hunting
• Learn 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
• Consider the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection
• Question concepts such passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting
• Understand the computational theory of mind that processes information including desires and beliefs which is a fundamental function of the brain
• Learn how the human brain has evolved by the laws of natural selection and genetics
• Learn how the brain now interacts according to the laws of cognitive and social psychology, history, and human ecology
• Learn the two basic types of memory available to humans
• Learn the four obvious features of access-consciousness
• Learn the two metaphors in language
• Understand the Baldwin effect
• Learn the results of the Daly and Wilson study on the ration of men killing men over women killing women
• Recognize the impact of humor and laughter
• Learn the description of a “gross cheater”
Steven Pinker, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author or co-editor of seven other books, including THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT.
19 CE credits; 660 pages
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