The Science of Thinking

for most of us thinking is at least somewhat unpleasant we try to avoid it where possible for example I ask these guys how long does it take for the earth to go around the Sun what you Reon CA is it a 24 hours obviously a yes or take this problem which has been given to thousands of college students you go into a toy store and there's a toy bat and a toy ball together they cost $110 and the bat costs a dollar more than the ball how much does the ball cost we're all wrong aren't we what's the answer if you think about it for just a second it's obvious that the ball can't cost 10 cents because if it did then the bat would cost $110 and the two items together would cost $120 the correct answer is 5 cents now the point of these questions is not that they're difficult any of these people could have quickly checked their answer if they wanted to the point is that they don't check because thinking is uncomfortable it takes effort hey the Earth doesn't take one day to get around the Sun actually like a ye now I think it would be easy to put these mistakes down to stupidity and believe that you being much smarter could never fall into such traps but then I think you'd be fooling yourself I think these examples reveal blind spots in all of our thinking due to the fundamental way that our brains work now one way of modeling how the brain operates is as though there are two systems at work psychologists call them system one and system two but maybe it's useful to think of them as characters so let's call system one gun and system 2 Drew you are Drew he represents your conscious thought the voice in your head I am who you think you are he's the one capable of following instructions he can execute a series of steps if you're asked to calculate 13 * 17 in your head for example he's the one who has to do it can I just use my calc no all right um 17 Drew is lazy it takes effort to get Drew to do anything and he is slow but he's the careful one capable of catching and fixing mistakes 221 now meet system ...