There is in fact a connection between preconscious decisions and the body, because it is gut feelings that allow us to rapidly assess whether a pattern and a considered choice will most likely lead to a pleasant or a nasty outcome, whether we like or dislike, welcome or fear it. Without such visceral coloring we would be lost in a sea of possibilities, unable to choose—a situation the cognitive psychologist Dylan Evans has called “the Hamlet Problem.” We may be gifted with considerable rational powers, but to solve a problem with them we must first be able to narrow down the potentially
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