Daniel introduces you to 2 most important people in your mind. He calls them System 1 and System 2. After reading this book, I can’t help but always recognize my thoughts and categorize them into the above two. It’s wonderful how you can stand aside and look at how your mind is working or thinking, even better, influence your own mind.
Out of the 2 agents, System 1 is responsible for quick thinking, immediate response and involuntary thinking like day dreaming, it doesn’t require much effort does it? Whereas System 2 is responsible for thinking slow, giving out thought over response and voluntarily thinking like we do in exam hall.
Think like this, you have an invisible friend hanging around you always, who is a powerhouse of knowledge and various other talents but because of the heavy capacity he is always tired, lazy and drowsy. So in day to day activities, when you come across simple jobs, you do it on your own without consulting your friend. But when things get serious or say some important issues come up, then you will wake your friend up, ask him what to do. What your friend does is dig up all the relevant information and does all the hard work for you and presents you with the solution.
For not very vague and not very important issues, you do your work and come up with a solution but, you ask your friend if it is the right thing to do. If not then you continuously suggest alternatives. Your friend who is lazy wants to get it over with, takes your suggestions and declares one as a solution. If none of your suggestions seem to be feasible then he starts working hard and deep.
Daniel says, System 1 runs automatically System 2 comes slow. S1 generates suggestions for S2 continuously. If endorsed by S2, impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs and impulses into voluntary actions. S1 has more influence on Behavior while S2 is busy and mind you it has a sweet tooth.
These two systems are constantly in conflict with each other which messes up our decision making and behavior. To quote Daniel, “Conflict between an automatic reaction and an intention to control it is common in our lives”.
Daniel in detail explains in what scenarios how these systems work with interactive exercises, which makes you go ‘Ohhh… that’s how’. I can talk about this book for a whole day and still not feel I have said enough.
I was introduced to this book by Sushanth Singh Rajput from his instagram posts and stories around 2017-2018. And I am ever so grateful for him and dedicate this review to him for inspiring the reader in me. Thank you Sushanth.
Well the book gets 5/5.
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