Prime Time Replay:
Steven Pinker
author of How the Mind Works
MsgId: *brain_storm(1)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:06:07 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
Good evening and welcome to another Brainstorms. We've had a few delays getting set up, so we'll be starting tonight's chat a little late: roughly at 10:15. So stay tuned!
MsgId: *brain_storm(2)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:08:07 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
Hi Rob, I'm on.
MsgId: *brain_storm(3)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:11:54 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
Hi, Steven, and welcome. Tonight's guest is Steven Pinker, bestselling author of "THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT" and, most recently, of a book with the bold title "HOW THE MIND WORKS."Since we're running late already, let's leap right in: Steven, you begin your book with a couple of key nods to humility, given the sweep of your title: first and most importantly, acknowledging the fact that we really don't know how the mind works. Given that, what is it that you're really doing in your book, if not fully explaining the mind?
MsgId: *brain_storm(7)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:16:36 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
Well, I'm certainly trying to explain the mind. The note of humility is to acknowledge that what any scientist has to say about the mind today is likely to be shown to be wrong in the decades to come.
MsgId: *brain_storm(8)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:19:06 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
Over the last few years there have been any number of popular accounts of "how the mind works" -- we've even had some of the writers on this program. What are the crucial differences of your account? Do you come down in favor of a radically different view from the others?
MsgId: *brain_storm(9)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:20:54 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
I think that "How the Mind Works" is unusually comprehensive in trying to account for a number of the aspects of the mind within a comprehensive account. The content ranges from stereoscopic vision to reasoning to romantic love to humor and religion. It also makes the strongest attempt to integrate the theory of evolution with psychology and cognitive science.The book differs from many recent books, in addition, in concentrating on the mind -- the software that the brain runs. It doesn't concentrate on neurotransmitters and synapese but rather on the goals that the brain tries to attain, and they way it is organized to process information.
MsgId: *brain_storm(12)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:26:42 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
I think that's absolutely right -- no other book I can think of takes such a broad look at the mind's workings, and you do a great job of holding it all together. Let me pick up on that phrase you used, though: "the software the brain runs." It's an analogy that's become increasingly common, but how accurate do you think it is? What aspects of the relationship between mind and brain does it capture, and what aspects does it ignore or contradict?
MsgId: *brain_storm(13)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:30:26 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
There are obviously major differences between the mind and digital computers. For instance, computers are fast and minds are slow; computers are reliable and minds are statistical and noisy; computers do one thing at a time and minds process many streams of information at once. But I think there's a common principal between what makes computers smart and what makes minds smart: Both of them are made to process information. Both of them are wired to transform patterns into other patterns in ways that mirror the laws of logic, statistics, or cause and effect in the world.
MsgId: *brain_storm(16)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:35:34 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
But do you think the relationship between the brain ("hardware") and the mind ("software") is very much like that between hardware and software in computers? It seems to me, from your book and others, that the mind is not as separable from the brain as software is from computer hardware. That is, the specifics of the hardware play a bigger role in how the mind works.
MsgId: *brain_storm(17)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:37:54 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
I think that the functioning of the brain is partly separable from its hardware. That's why the science of psychology has existed for a hundred years and made thousands of discoveries about the brain operating as a whole. The separation of hardware and software is also the basis for artificial intelligence -- the attempt to duplicate brain software on a very different kind of machine.
MsgId: *brain_storm(18)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:43:47 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
Well, one could argue that AI is an attempt to "imitate" brain software on computer hardware -- sort of the way Windows is an attempt to imitate Macintosh software on the PC. But let's shift gears to another topic: you specifically avoid repeating much of the discussion of language in the brain (which you covered in "THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT") in this new book. But clearly language plays a significant role in many aspects of the mind -- particularly those you deal with later in your book, things like art and humor. And I've seen lots of convincing argument that language -- its evolution -- may have played a crucial role in the evolution of the mind itself. What's your opinion about the role of language in the workings of the mind? Is it central, crucial to many functions, or more peripheral, an ability on a par with others but no more essential than many?
MsgId: *brain_storm(20)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:49:37 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
I think language is essential to the sharing or pooling of information among people. It probably played a crucial role in the evolution of the modern human mind. It lowered the cost and increased the benefit of information. For example, if I discover something through trial and error or a stroke of genius, I'm not the only one who enjoys the benefits. If I explain the discovery to others, it multiplies the benefit. I can share the knowledge with my children and relatives, and therefore increase my inclusive fitness. Or, I can exchange it with my neighbors for other things of value. Since a big brain is expensive --it consumes nutrients and makes us vulnerable to head injuries and makes childbirth dangerous -- it could only have evolved if the benefits of intelligence exceeded the costs. And language was a way of multiplying those benefits. However, I do not think that language is the lifeblood of thought. I think people reason using a variety of internal media, not only strings of words but abstract logical propositions, visual images, auditory images, and other data structures.
MsgId: *brain_storm(23)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:55:42 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
As you state in your book, it's only recently that the question of how the mind works has gone from the status of a "mystery" -- a question to which we can hardly imagine what an answer would even look like -- to a "problem," a question we've started to get a handle on. How has that happened? Where have the crucial insights come to shift us from one "gear" to the other?
MsgId: *brain_storm(24)
Date: Sun Oct 26 22:57:30 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
One insight is the analysis of thinking as computation. A second comes from the experimental study of human psychology, everything from perception to emotion to reasoning. A third comes from introducing evolutionary biology into the study of mind so we can ask and answer the question of why the mind works the way it does.
MsgId: *brain_storm(25)
Date: Sun Oct 26 23:00:04 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
Time's running short, so perhaps this should be my final question. Some people -- notably Roger Penrose -- think a comprehensive explanation of the workings of the mind will require a new, revolutionary scientific breakthrough (such as a theory of quantum gravity). Do you agree? Or do you think we have already come up with the essential concepts that will produce a complete theory of the mind?
MsgId: *brain_storm(26)
Date: Sun Oct 26 23:04:42 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
I find that an intriguing claim because it shows how well integrated the computational theory of mind is with the rest of current science. If you think that the computational theory of mind is inadequate, you must also call into question our fundamental understanding of the physical universe. I think the combination of computation and evolution has the potential to explain all aspects of the mind except the existence of sentience or subjective experience. It is possible that quantum mechanics can explain that missing piece, but Penrose has not shown how it can. My own hunch is that sentience is not a solvable scientific problem, possibly because our own minds are so designed that they are incapable of grasping the solution to the problem.
MsgId: *brain_storm(27)
Date: Sun Oct 26 23:06:50 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
I wish we had time to get further into that question, but our hour's just about up. Thanks for appearing here on Brainstorms for a fascinating conversation, Dr. Pinker.
MsgId: *brain_storm(28)
Date: Sun Oct 26 23:08:48 EST 1997
From: Steven_Pinker At: 168.100.204.58
Thank you. By the way, if people want to read more about these questions, they can check out the website for "How The Mind Works": http://www-bcs.mit.edu/~steve
MsgId: *brain_storm(29)
Date: Sun Oct 26 23:09:44 EST 1997
From: Rob_Killheffer At: 205.198.117.85
That's a great suggestion. It's a big book, and we've barely been able to scratch the surface here. Thanks again, and for Brainstorms, this is Rob Killheffer, saying goodnight!
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