Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman is renowned for meshing economics, common sense and psychology into his theories. Working with a team of experts, he has set the standard for cognitive analysis. I haven’t found many books that don’t reference him or Csikszentmihalyi.

The book solidly presents its case by introducing us to the mechanics of fast (System 1) and slow (System 2) thinking. Like the coma in the title, out brain interprets data intuitively and fails to identify pit falls or uses stereotypical data to bridge these. Inherently, our intuition is accurate until it it revealed that we are in fact wrong; our brain incorrectly judges the situation and gives us an analysis based on past experience and expectations rather than on probability and statistics. Unless our opinions are educated, we may not see the bigger picture and will dismiss any claim that our perception was inaccurate.

Must read book for anyone that wants to make a decision based on meticulous thinking and not spur of the moment. Your internal biases may mislead you. Give the book a chance. The only reason I didn’t give it a five star rating in Goodreads was because it was a long read and I had to keep putting it down to analyze, which is not a bad thing. I start shipping pages when I get antsy to reach the last page. However, by the end of the expositions you will be satisfied. It lives up to the Nobel Prize winning hype.

Enjoy!