Kluge
The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Hoye
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By:
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Gary Marcus
About this listen
Taking us on a tour of the fundamental areas of human experience - memory, belief, decision making, language, and happiness - Marcus reveals the myriad ways our minds fall short. He examines why people often vote against their own interests, why money can't buy happiness, why leaders often stick to bad decisions, and why a sentence like "people people left left" ties us into knots even though it's only four words long.
He also offers surprisingly effective ways to outwit our inner kluge - for example, always consider alternative explanations, make contingency plans, and beware the vivid, personal anecdote. Throughout, he shows how only evolution - haphazard and undirected - could have produced the minds we humans have, while making a brilliant case for the power and usefulness of imperfection.
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Hilarious, fascinating, and a roller coaster of dizzying, historical what-ifs, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids is a potpourri for serious historians and casual history buffs. In one of Phil Mason's many revelations, you'll learn that Communist jets were two minutes away from opening fire on American planes during the Cuban missile crisis, when they had to turn back as they were running out of fuel. You'll discover that before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's painful hemorrhoids prevented him from mounting his horse to survey the battlefield.
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They just throw the facts too fast
- By Concerned_llama on 12-11-20
By: Phil Mason
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Plant Science: An Introduction to Botany
- By: Catherine Kleier, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Catherine Kleier
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
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Dr. Catherine Kleier invites us to open our eyes to the phenomenal world of plant life and to the process she calls “Natura Revelata”, the joy of celebrating and learning from the secrets of nature. As Dr. Kleier shares her knowledge with contagious excitement for her subject, she emphasizes the middle ground: Instead of focusing on cell microbiology or the study of ecosystems and habitats, she stresses the basic biology, function, and the amazing adaptations of the plants we see all around us.
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Needs accompanying documentation and visual aides
- By Ryan on 04-04-19
By: Catherine Kleier, and others
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Cosmic Queries
- StarTalk’s Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going
- By: James Trefil, Lindsey N. Walker - editor, Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In this illuminating audiobook, Tyson and coauthor James Trefil, a renowned physicist and science popularizer, take on the big questions that humanity has been posing for millennia - How did life begin? What is our place in the universe? Are we alone? - and provide answers based on the most current data, observations, and theories.
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Not worth it
- By Daniel Earl on 03-15-21
By: James Trefil, and others
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The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
- By: Don Lincoln, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Don Lincoln
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
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At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology.
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Audible’s Best Science Offering, A Gem
- By MikeB on 12-08-18
By: Don Lincoln, and others
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The Quantum Universe
- (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)
- By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw approach the world of quantum mechanics in the same way they did in Why Does E=mc2? and make fundamental scientific principles accessible - and fascinating - to everyone.The subatomic realm has a reputation for weirdness, spawning any number of profound misunderstandings, journeys into Eastern mysticism, and woolly pronouncements on the interconnectedness of all things. Cox and Forshaw's contention? There is no need for quantum mechanics to be viewed this way.
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Not suitable as an audio book
- By SPN on 03-29-22
By: Brian Cox, and others
What listeners say about Kluge
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joshua Kim
- 06-10-12
Elegant
Fascinating extension of the evolutionary psychology framework. Argues that our brains have evolved in often "klugy" ways, meaning that evolution favors what works (and what comes first) and not what is optimal. I learned a good deal about things like memory, emotions, and perception...and now I know why I can be so dumb sometimes. Well written....a fun read.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Ahmad
- 07-07-24
definitely worth reading
great book to gain insight about our mind and our flaws. the last chapter provides good pointers how to deal with them.
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- ADog
- 12-12-20
Enjoyable, informative, though provoking, and very interesting!
I have a layman’s affinity for Evolution Psychology and this didn’t let me down. I enjoyed it.
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- Bryanoutside
- 06-21-18
Mandatory Reading
A great overview to the challenges we face as thinking creatures. A totally delightful listen.
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- SIMON SAYS
- 07-09-24
The Wonder mess of our Brain and Thought Process
It is amazing a system like us built through time by chance can do such marvel things as write this beautiful book.
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- Gurmukh
- 06-07-08
An Interesting Overview
Kluge is an interesting overview of the makeup of the human mind and how it may not always operate as we would hope.
I listened to Kluge shortly after also listening to Gut Feelings by Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck institute. I highly recommend reading them both in quick succession because they each advance arguments that conflict with the other and help put some perspective on both of them.
In Kluge, Marcus does a good job of illustrating many of the ways that our human brain, as well as the way we think falls short of perfection. Understanding our shortcomings is important, not to mention highly interesting.
But I can't help feeling that he's showing some of his own mental shortcomings in his arguments. He laments, for example, that we have an inefficient memory system, and argues that we would be better off with a "postal code" type system that would enable total recall.
However, he fails to consider the cases of people with exceptional memory and how they fit into the equation. The oversight seems to be his own case of confirmation bias, one of the examples of "kluginess" he details.
Gigerenzer's book does examine cases of such exceptional memory and illustrates that there appear to be some significant downsides - a fact that deserves to be explored in greater detail.
Kluge also lists some arguments counter to his, which are summarily dismissed. But the book doesn't address any of Gigerenzer's studies that show significant benefits to mental heuristics that rely on ignorance rather than solid data.
At times Kluge also seems a little overly critical, such as when it puts forth the notion that the species could benefit from a pill to cure procrastination.
But in general, Kluge outlines many interesting flaws in general human reasoning. I particularly enjoyed many of the tips for better decision making in the final chapter.
Overall, Kluge is a good read. I recommend it to anyone interested in human thought.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Dan
- 06-22-08
Not the greatest..
A little boring and far fetching... trying to relate everything to being a Kluge - and seems to over think and complicate simple items. It was okay, but not sure if I would repurchase.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tom
- 01-25-24
Comforting theory of Brain Evolution on many levels.
I enjoyed Marcus’ arguments for a Brain evolved in fits and starts in incremental steps, correcting for errors, and building on previous solutions. This theory is so much more reasonable than that of the Supercomputer Brain created out of whole cloth by some Omniscient Creator.
He touches on the Questionable Reliability of Memory, the Decision-Making Process, and the Search for Happiness and Pleasure. He points out the points of failure and success that demonstrate what we all understand as the Humanity and fallibility of the Brain. Recognizing these issues he even offers suggestions that might help us use this wonderful organ more effectively.
Four Stars. ****
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- VitaliyOnoshko
- 10-19-24
Why being absolutely bright in one things we act weird in others?
What if human brain is not a harmonized state-of-the-art biological intelligence engine, but actually a layered spaghetti code, parts of which are optimized for specific tasks but never design to be efficient together?
In #Kluge, Gary Marcus explores the quirks and inefficiencies of the human #brain, arguing that it is not as perfectly designed as we might assume. Instead, the brain is the result of a messy evolutionary process, where newer systems were added on top of older ones, often leading to clumsy or ineffective functioning.
For example, while we can easily recall faces from decades ago, we struggle to remember recent details like what we ate for breakfast. Similarly, we are susceptible to irrational decision-making, such as buying more items when influenced by arbitrary limits (“Limit 12 per customer” versus “Limit 4 per customer”).
Prof. Marcus highlights key areas of human experience — memory, belief, decision-making, language, and happiness — demonstrating how these cognitive functions reveal the brain’s imperfections. By understanding the brain as a “kluge” — a makeshift solution rather than an optimal design — we can better comprehend human behavior and thought processes.
This understanding is particularly relevant in the unfolding #AI era, where the efficiency and precision of machine intelligence augment creative nature of the human mind, offering opportunities for synergic collaboration between carbon and silicon-based intelligence.
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- BigWally
- 02-15-19
Fascinating Book!
This is a wonderful book by an esteemed NYU psychology professor which discusses how our brains are constructed. His basic premise is that our brains evolved to be "just good enough" to accomplish a particular task. Kluge refers to an inelegant solution to a problem. Because of this we humans make many mistakes, etc. One of the most interesting books I have listened to in many years. I hope the author updates the book periodically as this book was published in 2008 or 11 years ago. Even so, the book's fundamental premise is true.
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