Thinking Fast and Slow

I just finished this book by Daniel Kahneman. He is a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work with Amos Tversky on decision making. He was the subject of the book "The Undoing Project" by Michael Lewis who wrote "Moneyball" and the "Big Short." The former two were interesting enough that it piqued my interest into learning more about the decision making process from the guy who wrote the book on it, literally.
In essence, our brains have two functions: quick thinking intuition and slow thinking logic. The quick thinking is when we react instinctively to stimuli. It stems from our emigdala, the oldest part of the brain that is wired for survival. If we don't react quickly to a predator or some other threat, we die! The problem with this type of thinking is that it is easily fooled. You are less likely to trust a guy with long hair and tattoos because, even if we try to counter our intuition with logic, we still can't help being influence by the scripting from which our intuition draws. Anyone who has spent much time around me has heard my "culture goggles" metaphor. Culture is like a lens that we see the world through. The lens is comprised of the sum of our values, beliefs and experiences. I recently got a reminder of how readily children adopt messages and make them part of their lens even if the message wasn't meant for him or her. As she was driving my six-year-old Grace to school, JoyLynn said "We have a new president today." Grace replied with "Oh? Who is it?" JoyLynn said "His name is Donald Trump." Grace exclaimed "Oh! YOU HATE HIM!" JoyLynn was taken aback by the strength of her response and by the mere fact that Grace was even aware of Donald Trump at all. We certainly hadn't sat her down and shared our concerns with her. But that doesn't mean she wasn't listening. JoyLynn tried to put a more gentle spin on it without lying by saying "Well, he is not a very nice man." To which, Grace replied, "Well I'm nice!" JoyLynn agreed. She is nice most of the time. Then JoyLynn said " And he's not very patient." Grace said, "Oh, I'm not very patient either." The she followed with "Maybe he just needs a little time." JoyLynn said, yes that is a good idea. Then Grace said, if I run for president, will you vote for me? JoyLynn replied with an emphatic, Yes! Later she asked me if I would vote for her and old told her that not only would I vote for her but I would be her campaign manager.
So, too often, our decision are based, not on slow and methodically crafted logic but the information that was passed on to us from our parents, friends, teachers and the all-pervasive media. We can temper the tempermental effects of fast thinking by building a broad and deep network of knowledge. This is not as easy as it sounds. Another feature of our primordial selves is energy conservation. Since our brains can burn up to 1/3 of our total calories, and we are programmed to conserve energy, we resist the kind of thinking that burns the most energy; that is slow, rational thought. Yet, as Ralph Waldo Emmerson said "That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not because the nature of the thing has changed but because our ability to do it has increased." As we continue to add knowledge, our quick thinking system 1 can more easily access a better bank of information and thereby make better decisions. If we do it enough in a certain realm of life, we become masterful. Our intuition is informed by our vast knowledge. In his book "Blink", Malcolm Gladwell tells of how this could work. A museum was considering buying a statue that was touted as one of the best examples of Greek sculpture of a certain period. Everything seemed to line up and point to the fact that this was the real deal and would be a great addition to the museum. That is, until exprerts were brought in. They recoiled. While they couldn't really explain why they were repulsed by the statue. The word that their fast thinking brains came up was "fresh." Not exactly the word you want associated with a statue is supposed to be an ancient artifact. Upon further investigation, the statue was proven to be a fake. Another psychologist by the name of Mihayli Cziksentmihayli calls the seemingly effortless transfer of information from system 1 (thinking fast) to slow thinking system 2 "flow." Flow is a state of optimal performance in which we are simply "in the zone."
 I experience flow when I ski. I have been skiing religiously now for over forty years. Unlike other sports, I am a better skier now than I was in my younger days. As I charge down a mountain, I don't think about the next turn or what line I will take, I am drawing upon all of that experience to react spontaneously to the terrain, obstacles and any thing else that presents itself.
So in an age when there is so much information that stimulates system one but doesn't inform system 2, there are still books like "Thinking Fast and Slow" that can really help counter the strong cultural and political currents that threaten to sweep us away with the mindless herd.