Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind

This book review was contributed by Lena Phoenix:

Kluge is a slang term for “a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem.” In this new book, Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, psychologist Gary Marcus argues that the human mind itself is a kluge, and then goes on to discuss how this explains why you can’t remember the name of that woman from your yoga class when you run into her at the movie theater.

The basis of Marcus’ argument is that evolution was working with the tools at hand when it whipped up the more complex parts of our brain and that the result—while generally functional—is often far from optimal. In each chapter, Marcus details various maddening brain systems ranging from memory to belief to pleasure and offers intriguing reasons why they so often fail to work as we would like them to. In the chapter on choice, for example, he points out that we often make highly irrational decisions when it comes to money because our mind is basically trying to wing it with a system that was developed not to deal with money but rather with food. Anybody who has ever found themselves staring at the result of some financial indiscretion will well understand that evolution is clearly still working out the kinks on that one.

Marcus is not shy about highlighting the fact that klugey nature of our minds does not bode well for arguments in favor of intelligent design. As he discusses how we adapted our existing physiology to deal with the increasingly complex demands of language, it does make one wonder why—if there was an intelligent designer involved—the adaptations to the larynx that gave us more control over our vocalizations also dramatically increased our chances of choking to death. It does seem like there could have been a better way.

Though this book does revisit some territory I was already familiar with, his fundamental premise was compelling enough that it added a new dimension of understanding to the things that frustrate me about my own brain. In his final chapter, Marcus makes a good argument that we all need to understand the sloppy shortcuts evolution made with our minds so that we can better defend ourselves against the tendency of advertisers, politicians, cults and the like to exploit the flaws in the system, and he concludes with a useful, 13-point listing of concrete steps we can take to counteract the built-in weaknesses of our klugey brains.