Book Review: How the Mind Works

Finally my next book review. It is really a long book, so it took some time :-). It is How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

This is probably the definitive book on the computational theory of mind paired with natural selection. Being one of the most eloquent, wittiest and most successful psychologists and neuroscientists of this age, Steven Pinker outlines his thoughts with startling precision and a sense of good humor. Let’s have a look at the two big building blocks of his theory

The Computational Theory of Mind
Information processing is the central activity of our brains. Basically our mind consists of mental representations, which are the symbol representations used by the mind. These representations can in turn be accessed by our thought processes.

Our mental representations are the inscriptions of things, concepts and ideas in our mind. They are connected in our neural network. Different connections use different connection weights. By this mechanism we can determine that a horse, a pig and a bird are all animals but “horse” and “pig” are more strongly connected to each other than to “bird” and they also belong to the mental representation of “mammal”. This is done by simple statistical operations and can be modeled in traditional neural networks. Departing from classical connectionism Steven Pinker further proposes a hierarchical “layer-structure” in our mental representations. This structure allows us to perform difficult tasks such as quantification, recursion or the implementation of fuzzy logic.

Natural Selection
Natural selection is pretty straightforward. Whatever makes a living organism successful at reproducing itself is reproduced the most and is therefore most likely to be found in subsequent generations. As a result, most if not all of the features of our body or mind are here because they have been essential for survival or reproduction to our ancestors. This includes everything from stereo vision to sex drive (which differs from females to males in most species) or family values. Natural selection allows us to explain why the mind works as it does.

The Other 350 Pages
The computational theory of mind and natural selection are just the building blocks of Steven Pinker’s explanation of the human brain. In the rest of the book, he continues to apply these concepts to everything from vision to intelligence, emotions or family values. It is a tremendous read and I can highly recommend it to anyone interested in neuroscience or psychology!

How the mind works was published back in 1999, so it might be that some of its insights are not considered state-of-the-art science anymore. Generally though, the book was able to withstand the test of time and I am not aware of any claims in the book that have been refuted by now.

Currently, I am reading Sartre's Nausea. Follow me on Twitter to hear what I think about it or discuss any other book!

Book Review: Wired for Thought

Here's my latest book review for Wired for Thought: How the Brain is Shaping the Future of the Internet by Jeffrey M. Stibel (@Stibel). Let me share some thoughts about this extraordinary book.

Brain scientist and Internet entrepreneur Jeffrey M. Stibel (@Stibel) presents a provoking hypothesis: “The Internet is a brain. By this I mean that the Internet is more than a reflection of intelligence; it actually manifests intelligence.”

What the book is not

Wired for Thought is neither a grand unifying theory nor a comprehensive explanation of everything you need to know. Not with respect to the Internet and not with respect to the brain. Stibel (@Stibel) eloquently connects some of the dots that form his seemingly far-fetched hypothesis. Yet, there are too many dots for a book with roughly 200 pages and the interested reader is left with many unanswered questions. Indeed, Wired for Thought is not the holy book of the Internet, yet it is inspiring – tremendously inspiring.

“The Internet is a brain”

Let me give you one example, inspired by Jeff Stibel’s (@Stibel) book, which will show you how the Internet is like a brain. Consider the words apple, mobile and cell...

If you are now thinking of the iPhone you mastered a task that is too hard for most computers. You realized that apple refers to a company rather than a fruit and mobile and cell are short forms of mobile phone and cell phone, respectively. What happens in your brain is that a set of neurons is activated and this set of neurons is connected to the set of neurons representing the idea of the iPhone. Consequently, these neurons are activated too and you come to think of iPhone. That sort of intelligence is what makes us intelligent and computers – well, computers.

Entry of the Internet: The Internet has that form of intelligence. If you follow hyperlinks containing apple, mobile and cell you will eventually hit a website with information on the iPhone. Advanced search algorithms are even able to recognize that you might be looking for an iPhone by crawling through the pattern of hyperlinks. These hyperlinks are the dendrites of the Internet and the websites are its neurons. The structure of the Internet eventually resembles the structure of the brain.

Are we doomed?

OK, the Internet is a brain. Are we doomed? Will it hook our brains up to machines and create a matrix-type of future? Fortunately not. But Stibel’s (@Stibel) book does provide us with some insight about the evolvement of the Internet, its strengths, weaknesses and its eventual limits. While I cannot write about all of these insights here I have discussed the limits to network growth in an earlier blogpost. If this does not satisfy you, get the book! It is a great read and definitely worth your time!

Currently I am reading Brainsteering: A better approach to breakthrough ideas by Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne. Follow me on Twitter to get the news about the book review!