Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-book-review.html?pagewanted=all

by _zhqs • 11 years ago

133 31 11 years ago

nytimes.com

manmukh• 11 years ago

Probably the most important book I've read. I'm always trying to put the concepts he discussed into practice (often unsuccessfully). Thinking about what you're thinking is hard!

CountBayesie2• 11 years ago

For anyone interested in Bayesian Statistics it is worth noting that ET Jaynes (imho the arch-Bayesian) disagrees with Kahneman's idea that "people reason in a basically irrational way". Jaynes died long before "Thinking, Fast and Slow" was published, so his critique is based on Kahneman and Tversky's early work on the subject.

Kahneman and Tversky's critique of Bayesian analysis is basically: If more data should override a prior belief, then why is it as more data comes in people have increasingly divergent opinions? For example we have 24 hour news media throwing information at us and people only seem to be more divided politically. If we reasoned in a Bayesian manner then our opinions should converge, which they clearly do not.

Jaynes' answer is really fascinating and is covered in the chapter "Queer uses for probability theory" from 'Probability theory: The Logic of Science'. Basically Jaynes' argues that we are never really testing just one hypothesis. He gives an example of an experiment designed to prove ESP, and points out that no matter how low of a p-value the experiment reports, if you have a strong prior belief that ESP does not exist the evidence won't convince you. He argues this is because you actually have other hypotheses with other priors: The subject is tricking the experimenters, there is an error in experiment design, the people running the experiment are intentionally being deceptive etc.

He then shows that if your prior belief in ESP is sufficiently lower than your prior belief in these alternative hypothesis, not only will further evidence fail to convince you of ESP, but will actually increase your belief that you are being lied to in some way. So while Jaynes agrees that these priors may be irrational, our reasoning given new information is completely rational.

hcarvalhoalves• 11 years ago

By ESP you mean "Extrasensory perception"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception

CountBayesie2• 11 years ago

Yes! Sorry for not being more clear in my comment.

And just to be clear Jaynes is not explicitly arguing for or against the idea of ESP, though he himself does not believe he points out that there are many prior beliefs widely held in science that change dramatically over time. What he is saying if that if your prior belief in ESP is dramatically lower than your belief that people trying to prove ESP to you would deceive you in some way, the ESP is real hypothesis will never gain enough evidence to overcome the "I'm being tricked" hypothesis.

yellowstuff2• 11 years ago

This is interesting, but this seems like a pretty minor thread in Kahneman and Tversky's body of research. The review highlights a number of experiments that show how actual human reasoning differs from maximizing utility. The critique of Bayesian analysis isn't mentioned in the article, and I don't recall it being in the book.

If you have any interest in how people make decisions then "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is worth reading.

conistonwater3• 11 years ago

The review highlights a number of experiments that show how actual human reasoning differs from maximizing utility.

The conventional definition of utility is pretty strict, for example, it must be a function of the final outcome only, and there is no model uncertainty, which would go under the title of ambiguity aversion instead. So maybe it's not that surprising that a really specific narrow concept doesn't describe all of human behaviour and needs to be extended. But since you can extend it sufficiently to describe some interesting behaviours, is it really necessary to focus specifically on the utility function, and not the other things that people might be maximizing?

digikata• 11 years ago

I wasn't familiar with that area of Jaynes work. Your description of it is fascinating, especially given the modern contexts of scientists trying to convince climate change deniers as well as doctors with anti-vaccine groups.

misiti3780• 11 years ago

that book - and that chapter specifically, are absolutely fascinating. i have read that book three times and do not feel like i have a firm understanding of the content yet (try to read it once a year). i also like his example of polarized political views

think fast and slow is also an amazing book - and i recommend it to almost everyone that i talk to about books. it is not a quick read (it's almost 500 pages i believe), but you will never think about advertising or your brain the same way after you reading about anchoring , substitution, and framing

furyofantares• 11 years ago

Kahneman and Tversky's critique of Bayesian analysis is basically: If more data should override a prior belief, then why is it as more data comes in people have increasingly divergent opinions? For example we have 24 hour news media throwing information at us and people only seem to be more divided politically.

Does that example really fit their critique? We sometimes pretend we can compress a person's beliefs down to a single bit -- red vs blue -- and when you consider how many bits you'd expect your own political views to require it's unbelievable that anyone could offer a single bit a meaningful summary of them. The idea that anyone could even dream that a single bit could be a meaningful lossy compression of my views indicates there is not much meaningful diversity in the population.

andrewstuart2• 11 years ago

Bread and what?? My System 1 had a mild freak out until my System 2 suggested I Google it.

For the record, I think the blank is "butter."

faitswulff• 11 years ago

My own System 1 tried "bread and wine" and "bread and vinegar" before throwing its hands up in the air at the author. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thrown off by this.

keithpeter• 11 years ago

My system 1 went for "bread and circuses". I've had a political kind of day (in the small p sense of having to take care of organisational business).

delbel• 11 years ago

Just FYI Nobel Prize in Economics isn't actually a real Nobel Prize and was invented by the central bank system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economi...

gmac• 11 years ago

... for some values of 'real'. It's certainly prestigious nonetheless.

daniel-cussen• 11 years ago

It's the same amount of money, and that's half of what makes a prize prestigious, I reckon, along with how old it is and who else has won it.

MichaelGG2• 11 years ago

And he got his prize in that category because there's no Nobel Prize for psychology, yet. (Probably with rather good reason, given psychology's not-so-stellar track record so far.)

randomname2• 11 years ago

Case in point, Paul Krugman won one ;)

farslan• 11 years ago

This book is like a textbook and there is tons of stuff you might want to try. However I still couldn't finish it due to high intensity information it contains.

bradleyjg• 11 years ago

Some very interesting material in this book, but I found it hard to get through. It can be very repetitive. I know that's a well known teaching technique, but it doesn't make for entertaining reading.

arikrak• 11 years ago

Yes, the book would be better if it had been edited down to 350 pages (from 500).

frankosaurus• 11 years ago

Kahneman's talk at Google summarized the first 2 chapters pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0 I strongly recommend it for anyone who doesn't have time to read the book.

As for the book itself, I agree with some others' postings here -- it's absolutely fantastic. It changed the way I think about human cognition and education... not to mention machine learning, politics, and marketing.

utternerd• 11 years ago

This was an absolutely fascinating read and has given me a fundamental understanding of human cognition. This helped with other books as well, such as the "Lean Start-up" and "Willpower: Why we do what we do." It even helped me further understand some concepts behind Jeff Sutherland's Scrum book. Highly recommended.

MichaelGG2• 11 years ago

bold claim that humans are fundamentally irrational

That's bold? Didn't Kahneman and Tversky demolished the idea of humans being rational, empirically, in the 70s? Is there any solid evidence of humans being rational, or even an evolutionary explanation of why that'd happen?

Do we expect other animals to have accurate probability processing psychology, too?

henrikgs• 11 years ago

It's bold in a sense that most economic models regarding consumers as rational actors becomes irrelevant or plain wrong. Everyone knows it is a simplification and only partly true, but claiming its dead wrong really often was quite bold.

emmanueloga_• 11 years ago

"Thinking, Fast and Slow is a best-selling 2011 book by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Daniel Kahneman [...]. The book's central thesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The book delineates cognitive biases associated with each type of thinking, starting with Kahneman's own research on loss aversion. From framing choices to substitution, the book highlights several decades of academic research to suggest that people place too much confidence in human judgment."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

SixSigma• 11 years ago

We live life forwards but reflect backwards.

Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

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