Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind

by Gary Marcus | Science |
ISBN: 0618879641 Global Overview for this book
Registered by wingGoryDetailswing of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 5/12/2008
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Journal Entry 1 by wingGoryDetailswing from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Monday, May 12, 2008
I spotted this book on the new-release shelf at a local bookstore and had to have it. I've worked in the software industry for decades and the term "kluge" is all too familiar to me - though we spelled it "kludge" as I recall. [Digression: for some entertaining history of the terminology and spelling, check out this page.]

Anyway - the book's about how the human mind works (or doesn't), with the title, which means "a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem," suggesting that perhaps the mind is not designed quite as well as it could be...

Journal Entry 2 by wingGoryDetailswing from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Sunday, November 8, 2009
Some interesting discussion here on how the mind works (or doesn't), with rationales for many of the apparently inexplicable choices people make. Some of the examples are well-known ones - the bias that can be imposed by the phrasing of a survey question (or, more significantly, of a ballot question), or the ability of a room full of people to fail to notice a man in a gorilla suit walking across a basketball court while a game is in progress. [The physiological reasons behind these things may not be as well known, and it's likely that there are more contributing factors than are known about yet; the author does try to be fair about all that.]

There's a section on the pleasure/reward cycle, with observations on choices such as watching TV for hours every day; given that few if any of the programs viewed so assiduously are actually teaching anything (beyond some trivia, which can be useful for bonding with one's peers), a logical observer might be baffled that people would not only choose to do this but would seek it in favor of a variety of more useful - and possibly enjoyable - activities. [As I write this, there's a "Top Chef" re-run on TV, which I'm kinda-watching in the background when waiting for my screen to refresh. I refuse to say how many hours a day my TV is on {wry grin}.]

Later on he makes the excellent point that modern life is full of "hypernormal stimuli," meaning things that are so extremely attractive/lovely/perfect that they don't exist in the ordinary world - TV, airbrushed photos and ads, computer games that offer options and skills that the real world doesn't have at all... He's not saying we should avoid these things, but notes that it makes it much harder to realistically judge the relative pleasure/benefit of these things - and easier to come to crave them.

At several points in the book the author uses his arguments to refute "intelligent design," something that might put some readers off; while the argument that if God made people, the brain wouldn't be such a kluge, does have its points, there are so many other oddities about creation - all of which have been accepted as divinely-mandated by millions of people over thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years - I'm not sure his arguments are useful there, and one could certainly suggest that God was working on a deadline and *had* to use some kluges {wry grin}. But I thought I'd mention it in case future readers were wondering about it.

One more item: in the section on mental illness (including a discussion of how one defines such a thing when there's such a wide spectrum of different behaviors), he includes a footnote listing several of the conditions that were at one time listed as mental disorders: homosexuality was one, removed from the list as recently as 1973, but earlier lists included "the inability to achieve vaginal orgasm," "childhood masturbation disorder," and "drapetomania" - the inexplicable desire on the part of some slaves to run away... I'd like to consider the mental disorder of someone who thought that it was unusual for a slave to want to run away!

While there are plenty of fascinating passages in the book, and many amusing notes as well, it does sometimes drag a bit, in that "OK, I get the idea" sense. By the time I reached the end I was very glad to find a section with suggestions on how one might deal with the kluge that is the human mind, techniques and workarounds that might help counteract the more inappropriate or dangerous biases or blind spots. The book includes explanations of each of these, but I don't want to quote several pages, so I'll just list the items themselves in case they're of any help. (Some of 'em do seem obvious, like the sample-size one, yet we do seem prone to accepting a single anecdote over a battery of statistics at times!)

1. Whenever possible, consider alternative hypotheses.
2. Reframe the question.
3. Always remember that correlation does not entail causation.
4. Never forget the size of your sample.
5. Anticipate your own impulsivity and pre-commit. [The example here is Odysseus having himself tied to the mast before getting in reach of the sirens.]
6. Don't just set goals. Make contingency plans.
7. Whenever possible, don't make important decisions when you are tired or have other things on your mind.
8. Always weigh benefits against costs.
9. Imagine that your decisions may be spot-checked.
10. Distance yourself.
11. Beware the vivid, the personal, and the anecdotal.
12. Pick your spots. [That is, don't over-analyze every decision - "Reserve your most careful decision making for the choices that matter most."]
13. Try to be rational.

I'll have to see if I can use these to overcome my increasing tendency to procrastinate (one symptom of which is reading lots of books like this one instead of doing the things I should be doing!).

This chapter closes with concerns about today's children, who may be learning not to learn anything beyond how to work a search-engine - the ability to check for reliable sources, to filter information, to spot fallacies, these things may not be getting through. [I'm not sure how well they ever got through, FWIW, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to encourage people to learn these things.]

Released 14 yrs ago (11/14/2009 UTC) at Charlton rest stop on I-90 West bound in Charlton, Massachusetts USA

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I left this book on one of the pay phones inside the rest stop at around noon; hope the finder enjoys it!

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