Rating: 
Summary: depends who's reading
Review: It seems from reading over the reviews that your response to this book depends heavily on who you are and what your background is. I'm not a scientist, but I have a strong general science education. The book was recommended to me by a neurobiologist friend. I went in looking for a good general overview of the subject matter written by someone with a good prose style, and that's exactly what I got. If you have a general liberal artsy science grounding and want to be pointed at some new lines of inquiry, the book is terrific. I think Pinker does a better job making potentially dry subject matter exciting than just about anyone. Very few of the ideas in the book were completely new to me, but I hadn't encountered them all between two covers before and I very much enjoyed watching Pinker draw connections. It's especially interesting to compare this book to the Selfish Gene, which Pinker refers to quite a bit. Richard Dawkins is more concise and clear, but has such a gratingly obnoxious and condescending authorial voice that I find it distracting. Pinker, on the other hand, is a treat to read; it's like sitting at a table with an old friend. Some scientist friends of mine have complained that Pinker speculates too much for their tastes and tries to overextend his Darwinian ideas. Fair enough, but Pinker is careful to warn the reader when he's speculating and when he's summarizing the results of actual research. I felt like I had room to think critically about his arguments while he was making them. The book is very clear about its intentions and its limitations. If you're looking for a highly focused argument backed up by hard data, this book isn't it (The Language Instinct does that better.) If you're looking for Evolutionary Biology For Dummies, this also isn't it. Think of it more as a big tray with lots of intellectual hors d'oeuvres on it, with the bibliography serving as a guide to restaurants where you can get the full meals. I'm glad I read it and will read it again - even if Pinker is dead wrong in all of his arguments, he's a model prose stylist and very good company as an authorial voice. I'll leave it to the experts to pick over the factual and logical holes in the book; meanwhile I think it's well worth the lay reader's time and effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Right on the money
Review: This book should be required reading for all of humanity, especially political and religious leaders.
Rating: 
Summary: Juvenile
Review: Ordered this book with High hopes.......
Immediately it became clear that this is just another mistaken person in attempts to define and locate the mind.
Statements like "The mind is what the brain does" is SO far off the mark!!!....
I recommend that Mr. Pinker read The Implicate Order by David Bohm.
I am Certainly not after lofty definitions of the mind....just useful ones.
The computational theory of mind misses the mark in a big way.
It Almost has an argument viewing from the point of Emergence and the Hierarchy Principle.....almost....But that too misses the mark.....at least you can see why one would give credit to that argument. Mr. Pinker's book...i found to be dull, unimaginative and so far off the mark that i cant believe his position at MIT....it is scary that this is the prevailing thought on the subject. A poor waste of time. Some interesting thoughts and information....but the attempts to tie that into a larger theory makes some pretty wild (and ignorant) assumptions....
Rating: 
Summary: What a Waste of a good Subject
Review: If you're looking for a straight forward, honest appraisal on how your mind processes thought, remembers, recalls , analysis and determines what's fact and fiction, ect.., then forget this book.
If, however, you're looking for a not so well thought out argument on Natural selection, Darwinism, and little green men mixed in with a few sentences on the mind, then this the book you want.
On page 60 and page 159 he makes two major errors and that pretty much destroy any hope of a solid foundation for his book to build upon.
There are about 50 pages of useful information in this book, but you have to wade through so much garbage it's hard to justify the effort.
Basically, it appears the author could not stay focused on the subject of the mind and wander off into evolution, computers and outer space.
Rating:
Summary: Amusing, Decent
Review: Not the revelation that I hoped for, but an amusing read. For a layman, this is a good overview of psychology, with bits of evolution and other topics thrown in. I was disappointed with how Pinker belabored the dry comparison between the mind and a computer. That should have been 1/4 as long. I skipped on to the next section, and didn't feel I lost anything.I'd recommend this for someone who is a casual reader of the sciences.
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing
Review: I found this book to be lackluster and quite disappointing. The author is essentially using the text to launch an attack against humanistic ideas within the social sciences, unfortunately (or fortunately if you *are* a humanist) his arguments are quite weak, and generally set up and attack straw men. The theories he does propose turn out to be (as other reviewers have stated) faulty interpretations of computer science, and it is clear that the author does not understand the ideas that he is so vehemently attacking.
Rating:
Summary: How a Mind Works
Review: I think this book is really intresting it talks about all types of stuff like for example how a mind works. This book is more for a person that enjoys pschology and is actually intrested in anatomy or about the mind and how it works. I chose to read this book bocause I plan on working in the pschology field.
Rating:
Summary: The algorithmic mind
Review: Unravelling the mechanisms of human thinking and emotions is garnering increased attention from dedicated scientists and thinkers. Old attitudes and preconceptions are being swept away by newer ideas based on firm research. Steven Pinker has assembled these results to provide an outstanding synopsis of cognitive studies. He refers to the old views of the mind's working as "mysteries." Pinker, as a good scientist, applauds the updating of mental "mysteries" to "problems" capable of resolution. He makes no claim to the problems all being solved, or, in a few instances, even being identified. His approach, however, is a refreshing and innovative one, aimed at anyone wishing to gain an understanding of what it means to be human. As might be expected from the man who wrote The Language Instinct, he's a master of illustrative example and with many anecdotes for teaching the reader. Pinker uses evolutionary roots as the foundation for his presentation. Like it or not, our genes carry a large part of our mental processes. The mind is not a "blank slate," but is born with vast supply of historical information on which to build as it matures. The "cultural environment" so dear to some commentators makes only a small contribution to who we become as adults. Even a child's peer groups influence its development more than does parental input, and by a huge margin. This situation arises because the mind is an algorithmic processor. It is essentially independent of an individual's environment, with a built-in learning capability to select from the wide spectrum of inputs. To Pinker, this essentially unconstrained process is part of the evolutionary path. Children's independence reflects the need of natural selection to sort among "what is" to arrive at what "will be" in the future. There are certainly no guarantees of how development will proceed over generations. The computational image is based on "problem-solving." When to take a step, avoid predators, seek a mate, find food. Clearly, as Pinker states, computational mind processes are as universal as brains. Therefore, in Pinker's view, each brain develops modules for dealing with these issues. Like any powerful computer, he stresses, the mind depends on parallel processing for flexibility. How else, for example, could the brain control breathing while also thinking about a Mozart string trio? As humans evolved, they either added new problem-solving modules, or improved on the inherited ones. This is an algorithmic process - adding small instructions over time as adaptations to changing conditions. It is clearly a universal evolutionary process that has achieved enormous expression in the human species. Each
acquired "tactic" could be passed down through generations, with each successful transmission building on an inherited base. "The mind is not the brain, but what the brain does," is the key statement of the book. Pinker supports this image with numerous examples of mind/brain functions. Why our brain "sees" a three-dimensional image in a stereographic display when we know the photographs are two dimensional is but one of many instances he cites. The various factors he proposes must not be considered as independent entities, he stresses. The algorithmic processes form a whole, but not one based neither on conflicting elements nor particularly complementary ones. Weightings of importance take place continually, but even the expression of an idea is not a mental "victory" for that particular idea. The human mind's greatest attribute is its flexibility. As with any of the recent works on cognition, Pinker's analysis isn't the final word. Given the complexity of the mind, that is clearly an impossible goal. Yet Pinker has broached many new concepts in this book. All deserve further careful study. Pinker avoids dogmatism with his elegant treatment. This book is required in furthering your own thinking about our place in nature and deserves respect and attention. He welcomes serious studies in the subject, even if the work appears to refute his ideas. But he insists that the refutation must rely on solid science and not traditional dogmas.
Rating:
Summary: Computer scientists - don't buy this book!
Review: Ugh! Horrible! If you're a computer scientist, or even a person who has occasionally dabbled in the field, you'll be disgusted with the constant mistakes and misunderstandings associated with every mention of computer science theory in this book. Considering that Pinker's theory of "How the Mind Works" is based on the computational model of the mind, his near-total ignorance of actual computer science means that his whole argument is based on material he doesn't understand. He also presents the computational model of the mind as far more universally accepted than it really is. The number of mistakes Pinker makes in the fields I understand makes me wonder how many mistakes he makes that I am unaware of, lacking expertise in other fields. I treat everything I learned from this book as suspect and untrustworthy as a result. "How the Mind Works" is a bad rehash of several books I've already read - "The Moral Animal," "The Emperor's New Mind," any introductory psychology text. I recommend it only to people who want a brief, shallow overview of a field they will never research further.
Rating:
Summary: Funny and incredibly profound at the same time
Review: Pinker is one smart fellow. Fortunately, he has seen fit to step out of the ivory tower and share with us some of his knowledege about how the mind works. Many of our most basic beliefs are put to the test and found wanting by the data Pinker presents, but he's convincing. My guess is that when you've finished this tome you will come away with a much changed perception of yourself in terms of your motives and your actions. I bet if Darwin were around, he'd love to read this book!
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