Pinker, Thinker
Steven Pinker on how learning about the brain changes the way he lives:
There isn’t any aspect of my daily life that isn’t affected by my interest in the mind. When I have to write down a number, I make it a point to say it to myself, to use the brain’s echo chamber as an auxiliary memory. If while playing with my 2-year-old nephew I say, “I’ll borrow your brother’s dinosaur,” and he replies, “And I’ll borrow my dinosaur,” it makes me ponder the semantics of the verb borrow—and which parts he has not yet learned. When I see a pretty face, I reflect on whether I am reacting to its signs of youth, health, femaleness, or a population composite (and whether the composite is increasingly multiracial). When I listen to music, I attend to the note-by-note transitions and how they help me segregate the instruments. And when I find myself taking umbrage at a critical remark, I try to distinguish actual unfairness from my own self-deception and self-serving biases. I can’t say that this awareness makes me a wiser or better person, but it does add to the richness of everyday experience.