5 ms·
In "The Man Who mistook His Wife for a Hat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistoo
by FigBug 13y ago
In "The Man Who mistook His Wife for a Hat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_fo...), a book on mental disorders, there is a case of a man who can only make rational decisions. He is unable to function, he can't get past what to wear or what to eat in the morning. Even this simplest decisions take him hours.
- taejo 13y agoThe story you mention may indeed appear in an Oliver Sacks book (I've read several, and the story is familiar to me) but it doesn't seem to be in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, according to the list in the article you linked.
- FigBug 13y agoThe book has 24 essays, they aren't all listed in the Wiki page.
- mantrax 13y agoCalling being unable to decide what to wear as "only being able to make rational decisions" is interesting, but it's not what's really happening. Every decision has a ROI. The line where ROI meets costs is your maximum budget for a decision, after which point it costs you more to remain in the decision phase that it costs you to follow the best of the few "imperfect" decisions you have in mind (one of them includes the decision to stop "deciding", do nothing, and move on - that's still deciding). That idea so far is rational. If you wear nothing you'll remain naked. If you don't eat you'll die. And most of all, being stuck deciding forever just about anything is not rational. So this person is unable to sense his "decision budget" and decides forever, while most people have facilities (impatience, impulsiveness in some degree, boredom etc.) to work around us being stuck forever after our decision budget is spent. Spending to get positive ROI is rational. Spending infinitely beyond that point is not.