Marcus: Kluge

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Gary Marcus, Kluge : The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 20081. 211 pages, including notes, references and index.


Gary Marcus is a professor of psychology at New York University and director of the NYU Infant language Learning Center. In this book, he investigates how the brain works: sometimes well, sometimes not so well. His premise is that the brain is a patchwork of operations which developed/evolved over time into what he have today. As he writes on page 2:

Where Shakespeare imagined infinite reason, I see something else, what engineers call a "kluge." A kluge is a clumsy or inelegant -- yet surprisingly effective -- solution to a problem.

In a very brief and exceedingly entertaining work, we are taken on a tour of various functions of our brain. The chapter titles indicate what is considered:

  1. Remnants of History
  2. Memory
  3. Belief
  4. Choice
  5. Language
  6. Pleasure
  7. Things Fall Apart
  8. True Wisdom

I cannot praise the author's clarity, style or wit sufficiently. This is a wonderful book for anyone even in the least interested in psychology. Concise and amusing, scientific and accessible, fact-filled and not in the least dull, this volume is worth every moment spent reading (and re-reading) it. Don't just sit there...go find a copy and read it!


-- Notes by SJB

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