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Vijai's Reviews > Thinking, Fast and Slow
Thinking, Fast and Slow
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If your objective, like it is when one finishes reading a self-help book, is to implement what Mr. Kahneman has to say in real life and benefit from it, I should warn you, you will be sorely disappointed. Believe it or not, in my opinion, I believe Mr. Kahneman is telling you exactly that in this book - that whether you like it or not, your entire life is guided or may I say decided by two fundamental ideas and that there is very little you can do to change it, period.
Mr. Kahneman is probably the villain in every modern day spiritual guru's life, he argues very effectively that contrary to what these gurus may say the external world/ your environment/ surroundings/ or even society for that matter has a large say in your personal deliberate actions. You don't have a choice.
So, having said that, shelving this book in psychology section would be gross injustice. In my view this is such a good commentary of human nature. The two are different, very much so.
Read it, totally worth it in my opinion. Can get a little too drab but hang in there, this book is an eye opener.
Mr. Kahneman is probably the villain in every modern day spiritual guru's life, he argues very effectively that contrary to what these gurus may say the external world/ your environment/ surroundings/ or even society for that matter has a large say in your personal deliberate actions. You don't have a choice.
So, having said that, shelving this book in psychology section would be gross injustice. In my view this is such a good commentary of human nature. The two are different, very much so.
Read it, totally worth it in my opinion. Can get a little too drab but hang in there, this book is an eye opener.
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Quotes Vijai Liked
“The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.”
― Thinking, Fast and Slow
― Thinking, Fast and Slow
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mmmkay...good luck with that.
Have the exact same relation to Nathaniel Brandens 'Six Pillars of self-esteem! it really has had the greatest impact on my life of any book i read thus far. That was 7 years ago. Im on page 37 of thinking fast and slow and now the more excited that i read your comment. And Branden btw made me /much/ more live in the 'Systen 2' world since id go as far as build a bridge between Brandens concept of 'living conscious' and Kahnemans System 2. As far as i am in reading Thinking fast and slow, i would say the concepts do not contradict each other.
I can't imagine that after digesting the information presented in this book, a reader would fair no better than someone who hasn't read it, upon encountering any of the classic system 1 pitfallsSince Kahneman repeatedly mentions incidents when he himself fell prey to the various cognitive distortions he describes, I can easily imagine that a lay reader would fare no better.
I would suggest the Happiness Hypothesis. "Will" can be victorious...it just can't do it alone. I loved both books.
Even with the big problems with priming, "the external world/ your environment/ surroundings/ or even society for that matter has a large say in your personal deliberate actions" is one of the messages of the book and makes it very hard to maintain a belief in free will
On the contrary, the purpose of this book is in fact to aid you in recognizing when you are being influenced by biases and heuristics with the belief that in this recognition it is possible to counter their effects. With the knowledge of how system 1 works (fast, intuitive thinking) you can make a conscious attempt to recognize situations such as priming, anchoring, and the law of small numbers and switch to system 2 (slow, deliberate thinking). I can't imagine that after digesting the information presented in this book, a reader would fair no better than someone who hasn't read it, upon encountering any of the classic system 1 pitfalls.