Complete video at: fora.tv Author Jonah Lehrer explains why, whether when buying cereal or investing in stocks, people can become paralyzed when faced with too much information. He explains that indecision often leads to “catastrophic consequences,” and sometimes it is simply best to act on instinct. —– Scientists are using the latest neuroscience tools to break open the black box of the mind to uncover the secrets of our decision-making process. From CEOs to firefighters, how does each person’s mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better? Noted author Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools to determine which part of the brain to lean on when we make decisions. — The Commonwealth Club of California Jonah Lehrer is an Editor at Large for Seed Magazine and the author of ‘How We Decide’ and ‘Proust Was a Neuroscientist’. He graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He’s written for The New Yorker, Nature, Wired, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. He is also a Contributing Editor at Scientific American Mind and National Public Radio’s Radio Lab.
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@bignovska Jonah Lehrer is brilliant, especially considering that he is only in his late twenties. The points he makes are pretty compelling. The brain’s response to uncertainty is an interesting subject; learning about why a person hesitates to make a seemingly simple decision such as choosing a box of cereal may be able to teach how to make these decisions faster and better.
“uncertainty is a vastly understudied scientific subject” HAHAHAHAH…. illiterate scam-writing idiot.
Decisions to go to war aren’t made on instinct. And military training is designed to reconfigure a soldier’s psychology and reactions to get around an aversion to close-range killing. Doesn’t help them much with the subsequent guilt, though.
Given the right context, we’re all capable of killing, but generally humans have an innate squeamishness toward it. That is why killers have to somehow dehumanize their victim.
“sociopaths constantly in the papers and news..”
Bad news sells.
yeah………….you know i would agree with you if the world were not awash with war (Politicians decide and the “Veterans” Were only following orders Sir!……., if i never saw troops killing civilians and animals, if i never saw police brutalities/fatalities, and if i never saw the “minority” of sociopaths constantly in the papers and news…….
“some peoples instinct is to kill…”
I think sociopaths are in the minority. For most people, killing someone is a very difficult and disturbing thing to do. Ask any veteran. It is even harder to do at close range.
“but that’s a far cry from saying that “Often instincts are more reasonable.”
I suppose. All I’m saying is that much of our behaviour has a reasonable rationale that isn’t necessarily rendered by the rational mind. Either through our innate inclinations, like certain emotions or feelings, e.g. the role of mirror neurons in compassion, and sometimes through an unconscious competence that we get through learned experience, like a cop that has a hunch he cannot articulate a reason for.
read “Stumbling on happiness” by Daniel Gilbert……its great.
some peoples instinct is to kill…..
america is being destroyed by globalists…..all by design…
I agree everybody wants the best box of cereal that why other countries are doing their best to destroy the Americans Business from doing International Business by applying their low right down dirty tricks.
Business Psychology is a good suggestion to help us over come the problems in our businesses in America. But fighting laws, beliefs and religions in other countries maybe it is another force that maybe applied in which forbid the Americans Businesses so therefore Americans must understand culture difference which was suggested for Americans. No! we understand cultures because we have so many people in this country with different cultures so the conclusions are competitions.
International Bankers are trying to defeat the American Bankers too. Now, Americans need some smart solutions.
In my theory, I agree that Americans businesses are under attack and we have been criticize terribly for doing business around the globe. The free market enterprise has been a disgrace as far as laws of other countries forbidding Americans for doing business in other countries by exaggerating the Americans business ethics announcing a reputation to destroy the Americans Businesses thereby the International businesses planned a dirty job against the Americans Business.
I get what you’re talking about, but that’s a far cry from saying that “Often instincts are more reasonable.”
It is the complete opposite: being a reasonable person means overcoming, or delaying, instinctual drives, and instead measure the consequences of our actions then act accordingly. Our most fundamental desires serve our genes in the wild, but they’re not helpful when it comes to living in society. You subconscious wants it all, and it wants it NOW.
Good point. But I think that something could be said for gut feeling and intuition, particularly in instances where quick assessment is required, or in creative pursuits, or sport, or recognizing someones attitude or mood.
Evolution also endowed us with a moral intuition, which we readily use in most situations without running through the categorical imperative to decide the moral course of action. Children have a sense of the rightness of fair play without understanding game theory.
yours is a very important comment in the discussion.
talkinghead22 and riversonthemoon:
“Often times instincts are more reasonable”
Absolutely not. Subconscious-driven behaviour does not take into acount the long-term consequences of your actions, which is why impulsive people get into so much trouble (often criminal behaviour). All your subconscious wants is: to fuck, and maybe “survive so I can fuck.” Any higher considerations come from the conscious mind.
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them”, David Hume.
I think many times we may act on instinct or unconscious desires, and then employ reason to provide a rationalization for our actions *after the fact*. I think people do this more than they (could possibly) realize.
“Often times instincts are more reasonable”
I agree. I think our unconscious mind picks up more info than our rational mind could handle.
its important to note that both instincts and logic are evolved mechanisems. Logic developed to deal with problems too dynamic for biologically static instincts, but logic is still limited by its the problems natural selection designed it to solve.
I worry about that too sometimes….and a class in evolutionary psychology hasn’t helped…
I think where a lot of people tend to get hung up, or at least where I do, is in distinguishing what is my instinct and what is reasonable? Often times instincts are more reasonable than what can be made logical.