Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

58 J HOW THE MIND WORKSvermin of behaviorism, the mind-control plots of bad cold-war movies,the wide-eyed, obedient children of Father Knows Best.But when we look around us, we sense that these simplistic theoriesjust don't ring true. Our mental life is a noisy parliament of competingfactions. In dealing with others, we assume they are as complicated aswe are, and we guess what they are guessing we are guessing they areguessing. Children defy their parents from the moment they are born,and confound all expectations thereafter: one overcomes horrific circumstancesto lead a satisfying life, another is granted every comfort butgrows up a rebel without a cause. A modern state loosens its gripj, and itspeoples enthusiastically take up the vendettas of their grandparents. Andthere are no robots.I believe that a psychology of many computational faculties engineeredby natural selection is our best hope for a grasp on how the mindworks that does justice to its complexity. But I won't convince you withthe opening brief in this chapter. The proof must come from insight intoproblems ranging from how Magic Eye stereograms work to what makesa landscape beautiful to why we find the thought of eating worms disgustingto why men kill their estranged wives. Whether or not you arepersuaded by the arguments so far, I hope they have provoked yourthoughts and made you curious about the explanations to come.