From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Start date: August 1, 2014

Finish date: August 31, 2014

Discussion: Book Club 2014

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Book Club 2014

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What Members Thought

Aug 31, 2012 David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: economics, audiobook, psychology

This is an excellent book about how we think, written by a Nobel-prize-winning economist. Kahneman explains how two "systems" in the mind make decisions. "System 1" is the fast, intuitive aspect of the mind. "System 2" is the slower, logical and reasoning part of the mind. We generally make decisions quickly with the System 1, often because System 2 is simply--lazy. It takes effort to think things out rationally, and our rational minds are not always up to the job.

This book is a long, comprehen This is an excellent book about how we think, written by a Nobel-prize-winning economist. Kahneman explains how two "systems" in the mind make decisions. "System 1" is the fast, intuitive aspect of the mind. "System 2" is the slower, logical and reasoning part of the mind. We generally make decisions quickly with the System 1, often because System 2 is simply--lazy. It takes effort to think things out rationally, and our rational minds are not always up to the job.

This book is a long, comprehensive explanation of why we make decisions the way we do. Both systems are necessary, but both are subject to fallacies. Kahneman explains many of these fallacies. Most people do not really understand probability, so we are not good at judging relative levels of risk. Our decisions are strongly colored by how we frame questions in our minds. Simply re-framing a question can easily cause people--even professionals like doctors--to reverse decisions. We need to understand these framing issues, to avoid bad decisions. Elements of causality and Bayesian probability are described in some detail.

One of the most interesting aspects of the ways we think, is the concept of availability. Often, when subjected to a difficult question, we answer immediately. But really, we do not answer the question at hand--we have made a subtle switch to a simpler question, without even realizing it. Kahneman describes this quick switch to an available answer, in quite a bit of detail. Another interesting aspect is what he calls "hedonic" theory. Our memories of pleasant and unpleasant experiences are very much colored by their peak intensities and their ends--but definitely not by their durations. In other words, a short, very unpleasant experience is remembered as being much worse than an very long duration, unpleasant experience.

Some of the explanations of our ways of thinking may seem basic and obvious if you have read other psychology books. But then you realize--Kahneman and his colleague Amos Tversky discovered these aspects of psychology, by conducting a wide variety of clever experiments. Very well written, and understandable to the non-specialist, I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in psychology. ...more

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Jul 25, 2017 Rod rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: most-influential

A seminal work on human behavior

It is hard to overstate how influential this volume has been on how I perceive human behavior. The author provides a model of human decision making that appeared based on actual humans rather than a theoretical model.

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Jan 11, 2019 Neil rated it liked it · review of another edition

Too slow developing for me to get through all the book. Great insights into how the intuitive mind can set us up for cognitive errors, but I couldn't take the repetitive nature of the book. ...more

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Nov 30, 2011 Margie marked it as to-finish

Shelves: society

I didn't have time to finish before it was recalled to the library, but I enjoyed what I've read so far. I look forward to finishing the book as soon as it's available again. ...more

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