May 13, 2008
The human brain is a less-than-perfect device
From Newsweek:
Despite the fact that humans have been known to be eaten by bears, sharks and assorted other carnivores, we love to place ourselves at the top of the food chain. And, despite our unwavering conviction that we are smarter than the computers we invented, members of our species still rob banks with their faces wrapped in duct tape and leave copies of their resumes at the scene of the crime. Six percent of sky-diving fatalities occur due to a failure to remember to pull the ripcord, hundreds of millions of dollars are sent abroad in response to shockingly unbelievable e-mails from displaced African royalty and nobody knows what Eliot Spitzer was thinking.
Are these simply examples of a few subpar minds amongst our general brilliance? Or do all human minds work not so much like computers but as Rube Goldberg machines capable of both brilliance and unbelievable stupidity? In his new book, "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind," New York University professor Gary Marcus uses evolutionary psychology to explore the development of that "clumsy, cobbled-together contraption" we call a brain and to answer such puzzling questions as, "Why do half of all Americans believe in ghosts?" and "How can 4 million people believe they were once abducted by aliens?"
According to Marcus, while we once we used our brains simply to stay alive and procreate, the modern world and its technological advances have forced evolution to keep up by adapting ancient skills for modern uses--in effect simply placing our relatively new frontal lobes (the home of memory, language, speech and error recognition) on top of our more ancient hindbrain (in charge of survival, breathing, instinct and emotion.) It is Marcus's hypothesis that evolution has resulted in a series of "good enough" but not ideal adaptations that allow us to be smart enough to invent quantum physics but not clever enough to remember where we put our wallet from one day to the next or to change our minds in the face of overwhelming evidence that our beliefs are wrong.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 06:36 AM | Permalink
Comments
I just learned that believing in ghosts beats neuroscience.
Posted by: Felix E F Larocca MD | May 13, 2008 6:55:16 AM
Isn't the word evolution the wrong one here? Should not the words be environment and development of brain function? Evolutionary changes happen over long periods of time. As recently as about 1939, Mortimer Adler noted, when he taught at the University of Chicago, that high school graduates, and even most college graduates, could not read past a 6th grade level! As he also documents, reading is thinking and learning and acquiring knowledge, thereby developing the mind. It is not memorizing facts. But this can only be successful if one reads, and truly reads, writers with something to impart, information we do not already know and which is able to expand our brain function; what he calls "our betters". After he (a genius level individual himself) had read nearly all the Great Books of the Western World, he found even he did not truly understand all they had to offer, until he was humbled into teaching them to others. Then he read them again and again and learned their content. Today, most colleges are nothing but cesspools of indoctrination. Students memorize facts to pass meaningless tests, but never really develop their minds and learn to read. They watch television and listen to music while they "study" and prepare for examinations. Could any of these college graduates ever have written our Constitution, or developed the laws of mechanics or solved the "unsolved" scourage of cancer? Obviously not. They are not learners, but brainwashed robots virtually without any functioning brain, unable to critically evaluate any information. Reference:
"How to Read A Book" by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D., Simon and Schuster, N.Y., 1940.
http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/nov02/nov02_forum_adler.php
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | May 13, 2008 8:19:05 AM
The brain certainly is an imperfect device, and the best evidence for this is its susceptibility to superstition and tribalism. As Einstein said:
For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
Posted by: Jared | May 13, 2008 12:48:51 PM
The ability to consider and analyse things that don't necessarily exist is the very basis of human ingenuity and invention, and is not a sign of "imperfection" as asserted here. When James Watt noticed the ability of steam pressure to push objects, he conceived the first practical steam engine, although no such thing existed up till then. qed.
Posted by: aguy109 | May 13, 2008 4:24:52 PM
[airquotes]HERON
The steam engine was invented by Heron, an ancient Greek geometer and engineer from Alexandria. Heron lived during the first century AD and is sometimes called Hero. Heron made the steam engine as a toy, and called his device "aeolipile," which means "wind ball" in Greek. The steam was supplied by a sealed pot filled with water and placed over a fire. Two tubes came up from the pot, letting the steam flow into a spherical ball of metal. The metallic sphere had two curved outlet tubes, which vented steam. As the steam went through the series of tubes, the metal sphere rotated. The Greeks never used this remarkable device for anything but a novelty. A steam engine designed for real work wasn't designed until 1690, when Dionysius Papin published plans for a for a high-pressure steam engine. Thomas Savery built the first steam engine in 1698. Watt later improved the steam engine.[/airquotes]
I had a toy Heron engine as a kid, which is how I know...not like I read about it or anything
Posted by: Carlos | May 13, 2008 5:08:40 PM
Hi Carlos, being aware of the toy that Hero made, I did add the word 'practical' to Watt's first steam engine, but either way the point about the role of the mind is pretty clear.
Posted by: aguy109 | May 14, 2008 2:15:39 AM
Who needs machines that work when you have slaves?
Posted by: Jared | May 14, 2008 11:23:52 AM
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