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Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind | |||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Catalog: Book Release date: 2008-04-16 Media: Hardcover Number of pages: 224 Ean: 9780618879649 Book Isbn: 0618879641  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthor:
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Are we noble in reason? Perfect, in God's image? Far from it, says New York University psychologist Gary Marcus. In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but rather a "kluge," a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind -- think duct tape, not supercomputer -- that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature. Taking us on a tour of the fundamental areas of human experience -- memory, belief, decision-making, language, and happiness -- Marcus reveals the myriad ways our minds fall short. He examines why people often vote against their own interests, why money can't buy happiness, why leaders often stick to bad decisions, and why a sentence like "people people left left" ties us in knots even though it's only four words long. Marcus also offers surprisingly effective ways to outwit our inner kluge, for the betterment of ourselves and society. Throughout, he shows how only evolution -- haphazard and undirected -- could have produced the minds we humans have, while making a brilliant case for the power and usefulness of imperfection. |
| User Reviews: |
 Written on July 18, 2008 Summary: Wonderful start - then kluge sets in The author begins with the proposition that a lot of things in nature - including systems in living organisms, even mankind - seems as if they have been cobbled together in haphazard fashion. The idea of intelligent design will not survive a close reading of this book. The great Portuguese king, Alfonso the Wise, once confided to his companions (perhaps while swatting a mosquito) that, if he had been present at the creation, he might have offered a few useful suggestions to the creator. Marcus is a little more specific. He doesn't offer suggestions but he points out odd lapses in how things like eyes and minds work and how brains do what they do and suggests that there's a lot of "stuff" floating around in how we are put together that is pure artifact. It's there because it's there and it isn't the most efficient or best or even most plausible approach to the evolutionary problem we think it was meant to address. Marcus is a smart and witty writer but I suggest keeping a salt shaker handy. Science is constantly discovering that things it thought were meaningless or actual problems have some real value. Diseases that we inherit turn out to be protective against much more serious diseases that we could catch. "Useless" organs or systems turn out to have subtle life-protective functions. Too often we see something that we don't understand and label it a mistake instead of a signpost of our own limits of perception. I think that existence in nature exposes an organism to a tremendously powerful sculpting process and that what survives ought to be presumed to have survival value and function, even if we haven't discovered it yet. Marcus propounds his very different thesis - that there's a lot in what we are that seems senseless and incomprehensible, if not actually non-functional - and then seems to run out of steam. The best part of the book, the tests of the validity of his hypothesis and the implications if it is true, remain unarticulated. Marcus is a university professor. From the feel of this book, he is probably a good one. Yet, if he got something like this as a student paper, he would probably guess that it was a first draft and return it for revision with some very pointed and helpful comments. I enjoyed this book until about halfway through when it seemed to get lost. Worth reading as a humbling exercise, but not clear whether the proper humbling is from realizing that we are highly imperfect and contingent creatures or from realizing that we understand a lot less about what we are and how we are put together than we would like to believe.  Written on July 12, 2008 Summary: The Clusterf*$#@* Mind The term Kluge, pronounced similarly to "huge", was first popularized in early 1962, in an article written by Jackson Granholm, a computer pioneer. Mr. Granholm defined the word as "an ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole." Mr. Marcus asserts that Evolution yields suboptimal, patchwork designs, in particular the human mind. While it is widely accepted that the human body has many quirks -- wisdom teeth, the retina's backward installation resulting in blind spots in both eyes, a spine that is conducive to back pain, and even the replication process of the DNA -- what gets short shrift is the imperfection of the mind. A mind seemingly impervious to optimal design and prone to a host of human cognitive idiosyncrasies explained eloquently and in detail in this book. Our contextual memory is unreliable. Our belief system is subject to mental contaminations stemming from superstition, manipulation, and fallacy. The brain mechanism that controls our everyday choices is susceptible to the "weakness of the will". We tend to live in the moment rather than plan for the future, a remnant of our days without refrigerators when life was, as Thomas Hobbs put it "nasty, brutish and short." Most pleasures stem from the "ancestral reflexive" part of the mind that is shortsighted. While most of Mr. Marcus' assertions are plausible, I took issue with one in particular: That the evolutionary process is inherently flawed because it's not possible to build a superior design from the ground up. Consequently, improvements are made to existing, archaic systems ad nauseam. Mr. Marcus seems to discount the idea that evolution is a painfully slow process of building solutions to life's existing problems. In the long run, existing kluges will be replaced with superior designs for which new challenges will arise. Therefore, no matter how elegant and perfect the design, at any given period, kluges will exist because conditions, e.g. the environment and natural predators aren't static, and living organisms must stay adaptable or perish. The very nature of adaptability trumps perfection. A perfect system today will be less adaptable to the challenges of tomorrow. Some suboptimal designs will persist in the long run (blind spots in the eyes), but they are hardly of any consequence in the grand scheme of things. The human mind, as Mr. Marcus correctly postulates, is mired in imperfection for the demands of today's life. But today's demands have been around for less than a spec of time in the billions of years since the creation of life. In the year 1900, life expectancy was 30 years. Therefore, it made sense that puberty's onset was as early as the early teens. Nowadays, teen pregnancy has become a detriment to the parent (used singularly because at that age, the father is usually not around), and offspring. Mr. Marcus eventually offers advice on how to compensate for the shortcomings of the mind, but alas, his remedies are no more effective than telling an overweight person to diet and exercise. Lacking are specific exercises or courses to compensate for the suboptimal design of the mind. Nevertheless, the first step to every problem is to correctly identify the problem, and in that endeavor, Mr. Marcus does a magnificent job of facilitating awareness of our flawed brain. Kudos to him. Written on July 5, 2008 Summary: Too much not so hidden agenda... In his first chapter, Marcus writes that little attention has been paid to the evolutionary development of the human mind - and the kluges produced in that process. As a result, we have been deprived of unique evolutionary insight and clues to how we can improve ourselves with awareness of our inefficient mental proclivities. On the latter point, it is Marcus' belief that humans can and should develop a more rational approach to thinking to overcome these kluges. As he points out the shortcomings of the mind in memory (foggy), choice (irrational), language (imprecise), pleasure (short-term emphasis), beliefs (self deception) and mental disorders (fragility), he holds up economic utility theory as the ideal for making choices, a computer the model for perfect memory - logic in general - which appears to be the basis of wisdom - as the anecdote. On the former point, he uses kluges as a way to dismiss creationism and intelligent design, arguing that the mind would be much more efficient if there was a "creator" behind all this. To reach that conclusion Marcus would have to assume the definition of perfect by the "creator" involved making a perfectly logical, free of defects being. Is that logical or narrow thinking? If Marcus had assumed the "creator" defined perfection differently - or didn't have perfection as a goal at all, he wouldn't have been able to end each chapter as he does now - saying that these kluges are "proof" that intelligent design is bogus. No doubt, Marcus believes he has been able to overcome his mental kluges and produce a very rational book. I would have rather he spent more time on evolutionary origins of behavior rather than so conspicuously trying to discredit creationism/intelligent design with this lame argument. It not only detracts from what is otherwise an easy to read book on a fascinating topic but makes me question what he missed due to his "confirmation bias."  Written on June 28, 2008 Summary: Where was the psychology? The author's view of the human mind is very narrow. Emotions, anxiety, etc. are not really needed. Thinking is really like playing chess. Written on June 19, 2008 Summary: Imperfect and Loving Being So! Let me start by saying that Gary Marcus has written a highly engaging and readable analysis of the human mind. Kluge is accessible to all readers. One benefit of this book first that it's not filled with endless jargon and technical stuff that would put-off an average reader. It is well written and humorous. If I were to rate it strictly on it's quality of writing, it would be closer to a 5 star book. The author's voice and sense of humor are apparent throughout and make this an enjoyable read. The descriptions of how our mind actually works are insightful and enlightening. As I read this book it filled me with pictures of the cluttery and sometimes overlooked parts of my own mind. It's hard not to laugh aloud when reading how our memory works (and more often does not work), how our minds form belief, and the ways in which we come to making choices day in and day out. If I could divorce these fine qualities from some of the beliefs of the author it would make this book one of my favorites. All of that aside, I do have several fundamental differences with the central arguments of this book. These differences weren't hard to locate as they slapped me in the face very early on and never let go of me. At the very beginning of the text Marcus states, "Are human beings "noble in reason" and "infinite in faculty" as William Shakespeare famously wrote? Perfect, "in God's image", as some biblical scholars have asserted? Hardly." On this foundation Gary Marcus builds his case for the evolutionary development of the mind. My biggest disagreement with this idea is that for all the logic and scientific backing the author espouses throughout the book, this very argument is not so logical. When the author expresses a belief that human minds created by a perfect designer would in-turn be perfect as well, is a fairly short-sighted one. In fact it is the slight imperfections and quizzical shortcomings of a masterpiece that make it something worth viewing again and again. I can't help but think of Davinci's Mona Lisa. For centuries people have questioned at the expression on her face. It is the fact we are not sure if she's ready to smile? Or ready to laugh? Or ready to sneeze?... These mysteries and apparent short-coming fill us with wonder again and again. When we think of the one's we love it is more often the little quirks and foibles that draw us to them than some type of perfect image. Perfection definitely loses it's shine through the ever marching passage of time, while the everyday beauty of normal, "flawed" people holds us and keeps us coming back for more again and again. To say that imperfection in a product denies the presence of a "producer" or craftsman or artisan is a faulty argument. Unfortunately I don't blindly accept the popular arguments of evolution. To me it takes much more faith to accept that all the beauty and wonder and complexity of this world happened by random chance, than to reach out and accept by faith that we were created by an infinite, loving creator. Every reaction has and equal and opposite action. There are no unmoved movers out there. To me imperfection in a creation is a more sure sign of the genius in the creator than perfection would ever be. The mind is a beautiful thing even in it's randomness and imperfection. I'm always amazed as my brain and those of my young students make connections and form new learning in their fertile minds. To pass this off as merely chemical would be foolhardy. As I read this book over and over again a hollow argument rang. I cannot in good faith say the book was bad, as it was not. I did enjoy the many illustrations of human thought, choice, faith, and reason. But don't take all the arguments posited there as proof-positive of anything... Enjoy the work of art, even in it's imperfections. Marcus is a master wordsmith and you'll surely enjoy his thoughts. |
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| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2008-04-16 | 2008-04-08 | 2008-02-19 | 2008-02-05 | 2008-06-03 | 2008-05-13 |
| Media | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover |
| Format | - | - | Roughcut | - | - | - |
| Number of pages | 224 | 293 | 304 | 272 | 224 | 272 |
| Ean | 9780618879649 | 9780300122237 | 9780061353239 | 9780312359201 | 9780385524384 | 9780375424045 |
| Book Isbn | 0618879641 | 0300122233 | 006135323X | 0312359209 | 0385524382 | 0375424040 |
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