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Maker Faire Austin 2008
Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind
Maker Stage , Saturday 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
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.
If mankind were the product of some intelligent, compassionate designer, our thoughts would be rational, our logic impeccable. Our memories would be robust, our recollections reliable. Our sentences would be crisp, our words precise, our languages systematic and regular; in reality, or our minds besodden with irregular verbs (sing-sang, ring-rang, yet bring-brought, and we humans are the only species smart enough to systematically plan for the future —yet dumb enough to ditch even our most carefully made plans in favor of short-term gratification. (“Did I say I was on a diet? Mmm, but three-layer chocolate mousse is my favorite…Maybe I’ll start my diet tomorrow.”).
I don’t mean to suggest that the “design” of the human mind is a total train wreck, but if I were a politician, I’m pretty sure the way I’d put it is: “mistakes were made.” The goal of this lecture is to explain what mistakes were made—and why.
Web site: http://klugethebook.com/
About the Maker(s)
Gary Marcus
Dr. Marcus is Director of the NYU Infant Language Learning Center, and Professor of Psychology at New York University. Author of The Birth of the Mind, The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science, and editor of The Norton Psychology Reader, Marcus's research on developmental cognitive neuroscience has been published in over forty articles in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Cognition, Cognitive Psychology, and the Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.
In 1996 he won the Robert L. Fantz award for new investigators in cognitive development, and in 2002-2003 Marcus he was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Social and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His 2008 book Kluge was a New York Times Editor's Choice.
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gary/
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