9 ms·
In the book "Thinking fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman, it is claimed that there is a growing body of evidence that we really have two brain systems. A fast on
by codehotter 14y ago
In the book "Thinking fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman, it is claimed that there is a growing body of evidence that we really have two brain systems. A fast one, which uses heuristics to quickly approximate the answer, and a slow one, capable of deliberate and rational thought. He argues that the fast brain system is really responsible for a lot of our cognitive biases.
For example, our fast brain does not really understand probability. It only knows three categories: either something is impossible, it is possible, or it is a certainty. A lot of human behaviour with regards to probability can be explained by this simple assumption.
Why do people buy lottery tickets? For their intuition, it moves an impossibility into a possibility. The fast brain system that fuels their intuition does not care what the actual probability is and does not understand anyway.
- disgruntledphd2 14y agoWhile I deeply respect Daniel Kahneman's work, please note that his two system "theory" is pretty awful. He uses it as a justification for some strange results, and made no effort to test it. Now, there is some evidence that humans have numerous different reasoning systems, but this is a complicated and controversial area, and we have no idea how many, its somewhere between 1 and n, where n could range from 0 to at least 10.