Kluge

A kluge is an engineering term for a makeshift solution, a clumsy construction that somehow works.

This is Gary Marcus's analogy for the way the human mind has evolved. Arguing against a whole tradition that praises our human minds as the most perfect result of evolution, Marcus shows how imperfect and ill-adapted our brains really are to the complicated modern world that we live in. We screw up, but we get along.

Like our bodies - upright, but forced to work with a spine that would give us less back pain if we walked on all fours - our brains have had to adapt from the environment of our early origins to a situation in which our taste for short-term satisfactions can be fatal. We are prone to rages, addictions and mistakes that limit our capacity for rational action. We love food that is bad for us; we remember unimportant things and forget what is truly important; we find it difficult to learn from experience. We make short-term decisions that are disastrous for ourselves and the planet we live on. Our languages are weirdly complicated and cause endless misunderstandings.

Full of entertaining examples of our mind's limitations - from memory lapses to our inability to think ahead - Kluge is a controversial and memorable new look at what it means to be human. It is an inspiring call to accept ourselves as we really are, not as we would wish to be.