I’m reading Homo Deus right now and the third section has started. In it, Y.K. Harrari begins by analyzing the two systems of thought that humans make decisions by. He calls these the experience side, and the narrative side.
The experience side is what makes decisions instantly, the part of you that gorges on ice cream, or skips the gym, or instantly assumes an increase in probability of 0% to 10% is better than 45% to 55%.
The narrative side is what makes decisions for you in the long term. It’s the logical part that decides studying finance is better than art in the long term, or that dieting and exercising for the next 6 months is going to result in a better you. It’s the problem solving side.
The problem is that these sides don’t work well together. They work in isolation, and the narrative side is constantly trying to explain away the horrible decisions made by the experience side. It’s truly Jekyl and Hide in your brain. I first came across these two sides of us while reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. That should be any reader’s first stop if they are interested in behavioral science. A good summary I’ve lifted from wikipedia is below. System 1 is the experience side, and system 2 is the narrative side.
- System 1: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious. Examples (in order of complexity) of things system 1 can do:
- see that an object is at a greater distance than another
- localize the source of a specific sound
- complete the sentence “war and …”
- display disgust when seeing a gruesome image
- solve 2+2=?
- read a text on a billboard
- drive a car on an empty road
- come up with a good chess move (if you’re a chess master)
- understand simple sentences
- connect the description ‘quiet and structured person with an eye for details’ to a specific job
- System 2: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious. Examples of things system 2 can do:
- brace yourself before the start of a sprint
- point your attention towards the clowns at the circus
- point your attention towards someone at a loud party
- look out for the woman with the grey hair
- dig into your memory to recognize a sound
- sustain a higher than normal walking rate
- determine the appropriateness of a behaviour in a social setting
- count the number of A’s in a certain text
- give someone your phone number
- park into a tight parking space
- determine the price/quality ratio of two washing machines
- determine the validity of a complex logical reasoning
The better we understand the way we think, the better we will think. I’m particularly excited about catching there errors I make in thinking. After this Easter, I’m trying to minimize the decisions I make in the experience side, and force myself to be more logical, and live in the narrative side.