People have speculated that out-of-body experiences (OBEs) provide conclusive evidence that consciousness can leave the body. Consider the following example of an OBE reported by a woman who had an internal hemorrhage after an operation:. I was awake and aware of my surroundings. A nurse came in to take my blood pressure every half hour. … Read more
Choice is good, but too much choice can be bad. Choosing between 4 types of red wine is pleasant but choosing between 144 types of wine is stressful. The paradox of choice is becoming more relevant with time, as more options become available across many different domains. There are millions of books available to download; … Read more
Nassim Nicholas Taleb started his career as a trader before making the move to academia. His favorite hobby is blasting pseudo-intellectuals, psychologists, expert forecasters, and any kind of person he considers an intellectual phony, which is most intellectuals. He prefers taxi drivers, craftsman, entrepreneurs. The former have a voice but contribute nothing of substance, the … Read more
For years, professors at Duke University conducted a survey in which the chief financial officers of large corporations estimated the returns of the Standard & Poor’s index over the following year. The Duke scholars collected and examined 11,600 such forecasts. The conclusion was straightforward: financial officers of large corporations had no clue about the short-term … Read more
Thinking: Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is about the ways in which our automatic patterns of thought can mislead us. But the book is not merely a collection of fallacies of the mind, but a study of the different conditions that can affect how we think, and even, how we remember. Throughout the book, … Read more
P. 97) System 1 substitutes complex questions for simpler ones: You rarely feel stumped. Even if you don’t really understand something, you make conclusions based on a small amount of evidence that you don’t understand. You like some people and dislike others. You feel a stock will succeed. You distrust a stranger. All of this … Read more
P.89) System 2 deals with purposeful questions, whether from abroad or from within. There is no limit to what these questions can be, but they must be specific. System 1 constantly monitors what is happening internally and externally. These basic assessments play an important role in intuitive judgement because they substitute for more difficult – … Read more
P. 84 Halo effect. You have an impression about someone, colours everything else you think about them. Kahneman allowed cognitive ease to determine how he graded assignments, when he found a student who did well on one question, he became less critical of their answers in subsequent questions. Also known s a general principle:decorrelate error. … Read more
P.54 – Priming suggests that we don’t know ourselves as well as we think. Simple, common gestures affect how you interpret experiences and how you behave. Nodding while listening to someone makes you more likely to accept what they are saying. Acting calm and smiling makes you feel calm and happy. P.55 – money priming … Read more
P.40 – to maintain a coherent train of thought and engage in effortful thinking requires self control. the frequent switching of tasks and speeded up mental work are probably not intrinsically pleasurable -we will avoid them when possible. That is how the law of least effort came to be a law. Even without time pressure, … Read more