Thinking Fast and Slow is an overview and explanation of the Nobel Prize-winning insights from the famous psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. It is a bestselling book and was published in 2011. It is awarded for the best creative academic work. Different topics were introduced, including the connections among different disciplines of science, engineering, and medicine. It is considered as one of the bold, profound, and complete intellectual surprises. The book explains psychologically how fast automatic, as well as slow, rational thinking, help us to survive in the difficult world. The main aim of the paper is to discuss the synthesis as well as the basic components described in the book.
In this book, with the help of different examples, the concept of thinking is described. The author initially let us imagine as the first human on the earth. I was walking with a kid on the way and found a lion. I make my kid play with it, but the lion kills and eats the child (Kahneman, 2011). The next time, he gets his wife pregnant, and another kid is born. The main walk with that kid, and when they see the lion, they hide themselves. After some time, they see a bTo, explained again d, is at the scene. To explain the concept, he categorized the thinking in System 1 theory as well as System 2 theory. The system one theory is based on the fast and automatic. It is useless, irrational, and illogical as it only expresses what to do because of the past experience but because of the current situations. In contrast, system 2 is slow and logical. It is rational, and it would let us explain that the kid’s death would be connected to the lion but not the bird.
The book basically comprises all of the phases of analytical thinking. Daniel explained in his book that, in many ways, people make falsehoods.
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.”
In this quote, he expresses that people mostly believe in the wrong side and do what they have done and continuously repeat. The purpose is straightforward, as people don’t want to understand the truth behind a procedure, and they follow it by thinking last and irrationally. The reason for survival is also because of both systems. The main and basic aim of the book was to describe the big idea in which there would be the development of understanding which system should be used, either the logical or the fast (Kahneman, 2011).
“Intelligence is not only the ability to reason; it is also the ability to find relevant material in memory and to deploy attention when needed.”
The book is based on a number of concepts being defined and explained their concepts accordingly. Daniel has explained persuasion marketing in which he has discussed that the power of persuasion is not to explain the reason but to only intuit them. Some social, cognitive as well as economic factors are also discussed in the book. Most of them are understood and explained. There are some heuristics designed for system 1, in which the first one of heuristics is the effect. In response to this heuristic, the individual will reply with emotions and will not judge the situation while understanding the results and benefits. The anchoring of the heuristic is whether the recently obtained or analyzed information is enough for decision-making or not. The availability of the heuristic would be considered to be self-understanding, but in the current world, nobody is engaged with such a heuristic, and everyone is driven by the media and its coverage shown all over the world.
On the other hand, there are some biases of system 1, which are actions in which the belief is considered, and because of that belief, an individual is able to reach a conclusion. Similarly, some of the biases could also be described in the loss of aversion. In this, there is an enhanced risk of losing something or someone. The mainstream media plays an important role in regulating a number of life activities. For example, if an individual is traveling to New York, he would not think of a plane crash or a terrorist attack. This peace of mind is always being achieved. Peace of mind is highly disturbed by the mainstream media, and the most prominent is that it exaggerates terrorism and other local and international issues even though the probability of these problems could be close to 0% (Kahneman, 2011).
“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”
According to the analysts, there is a 10% chance of dying. In a situation in contrast, it is always forgotten that the probability of living is 90%, which is forgotten completely when a concern is under discussion. It explains that the increase in stress levels in the common public is caused by overstressing and overstating explanations. It is a concept of framing, and the author has properly explained this concept with a number of examples. Framing is mostly for making good things more convincing and painful and to create an influence.
In a general perspective, the author’s points could be considered completely true because the current world is completely following system 1. It is irrational and inefficient. There are more possibilities of making same mistakes in this system but if the thinkitwog is changed from the system 1 to system 2 then it would become rational and analytical. By analytical and rational thinking, problems can be solved in no time, and hard situations cannot affect mental health and stability. Since the author has completely organized his point of view in the book, all of its components are clear while reading the book. There is very little possibility of getting divergent of the ideas and discussion because most of the book’s ideas comprised examples that keep the reader engaged with analytical thinking and strong belief in thinking about his thoughts and actions.
In a nutshell, the book has a number of different components with respect to the synopsis. There are a number of factors and discussions with the help of strong examples which have helped the reader to understand the problems of system one and the benefits of system 2. There is a discussion in the book about the hopelessness. It is a fact and a complete discussion in the book that people would be least likely to make the same mistake. It is complicated to explain that the big picture could be destroyed if it is presented in the wrong way. The people are not able to perceive the knowledge, but they are more focused on the presentation of the information. In different contexts, a huge number of the population is not able to live a normal life and finds themselves in different problems of mental health and sickness. This is all because of the wrong presentation of the data.
Works Cited
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking fast and slow. Macmillan, 2011.
