5 ms·

Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

133 points by _zhqs 12y ago

manmukh 12y 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!
CountBayesie 12y 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 12y ago
  By ESP you mean "Extrasensory perception"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception
  - CountBayesie 12y 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.
- yellowstuff 12y 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.
  - conistonwater 12y 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?
andrewstuart2 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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_Economic_Sciences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economi...
- gmac 12y ago
  ... for some values of 'real'. It's certainly prestigious nonetheless.
  - daniel-cussen 12y 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.
- MichaelGG 12y 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 12y ago
  Case in point, Paul Krugman won one ;)
farslan 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
  Yes, the book would be better if it had been edited down to 350 pages (from 500).
- frankosaurus 12y ago
  Kahneman's talk at Google summarized the first 2 chapters pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0 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 12y 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.
MichaelGG 12y 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 12y 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_ 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
SixSigma 12y ago
We live life forwards but reflect backwards.

133 points by _zhqs 12y 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!

CountBayesie 12y 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 12y ago
By ESP you mean "Extrasensory perception"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception
- CountBayesie 12y 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.
yellowstuff 12y 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.
- conistonwater 12y 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?

andrewstuart2 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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_Economic_Sciences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economi...

gmac 12y ago
... for some values of 'real'. It's certainly prestigious nonetheless.
- daniel-cussen 12y 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.
MichaelGG 12y 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 12y ago
Case in point, Paul Krugman won one ;)

farslan 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
Yes, the book would be better if it had been edited down to 350 pages (from 500).
frankosaurus 12y ago
Kahneman's talk at Google summarized the first 2 chapters pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0 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 12y 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.

MichaelGG 12y 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 12y 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_ 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

SixSigma 12y ago

We live life forwards but reflect backwards.