Pinker: The Blank Slate

Summary: The Blank Slate by Pinker . (Stub — expand from highlights.)

Sources: quotes_batch_18.md

Source pages: Library Quotes Analysis: Batch 7 (Books 86-100 Selection), Quotes batch 18

Quote pages: Q04, Q05, Q11, Q14, Q24, Q25, Q26, Q34, Q45, Q46, Q57, Pinker – The Blank Slate

Last updated: 2026-05-07

Quotes

Concept

“The Blank Slate is the idea that the human mind has no inherent structure and can be inscribed at will by society.” (p. 5)

Behavior

“Behavior is the result of a complex interaction between genetic predispositions and environmental triggers.” (p. 50)

Game Theory

“The ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ is a biological reality when individual gain outweighs the collective health of the group.” (p. 254)

Cognition

“The mind is a system of ‘mental modules’ designed by evolution to solve specific survival problems.” (p. 21)

Memory

“We do not remember the world as it is; we remember our interpretations of it, filtered through our innate biases.” (p. 210)