How to Think About the Mind.(Cover Story)

Byline: Steven Pinker (Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the psychology department at Harvard. His books include "How the Mind Works" and "The Blank Slate.")

Every evening our eyes tell us that the sun sets, while we know that, in fact, the Earth is turning us away from it. Astronomy taught us centuries ago that common sense is not a reliable guide to reality. Today it is neuroscience that is forcing us to readjust our intuitions. People naturally believe in the Ghost in the Machine: that we have bodies made of matter and spirits made of an ethereal something. Yes, people acknowledge that the brain is involved in mental life. But they still think of it as a pocket PC for the soul, managing information at the behest of a ghostly user.

Modern neuroscience has shown that there is no user. "The soul" is, in fact, the information-processing activity of the brain. New imaging techniques have tied every thought and emotion to neural activity. And any change to the brain--from strokes, drugs, electricity or surgery--will literally change your mind. But this understanding hasn't penetrated the conventional wisdom. We tell people to "use their brains," we speculate about brain transplants (which really should be called body transplants) and we express astonishment that meditation, education and psycho-therapy can actually change the brain. How else could they work?

This resistance is not surprising. In "Descartes' Baby," psychologist Paul Bloom argues that a mind-body distinction is built into the very way we think. Children easily accept stories in which a person changes from a frog to a prince, or leaves the body to go where the wild things are. And though kids know the brain is useful for thinking, they deny that it makes them feel sad or love their siblings.

The disconnect between our common sense and our best science is not an academic curiosity. Neuroscience is putting us in unfamiliar predicaments, and if we continue to think of ourselves as shadowy users of our brains we will be needlessly befuddled. The Prozac revolution provides an example. With antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs so common, critics wonder whether we're losing the ability to overcome problems through force of will. Many an ...