- Being happy “in” you life, vs. being happy “about” your life
- We don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences
- We don’t think of the future as experience, we think of the future as anticipated memories
- Why do we give so much weight to memories, relative to the weight we give experiences?
- We do not attend to the same things when we think about life and when we actually live.
Tag Archives: Daniel Kahneman
Silicon Valley is more important than the Middle East
I’m a few chapters into Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a really interesting book by Yuval Noah Harari. He’s an Oxford Ph.D. whose current research focuses on macro-historical questions: What is the relation between history and biology? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded?
Today I found a link to a conversation between Harari and Daniel Kahneman that was packed with interesting ideas. Here’s one:
“In terms of history, the events in Middle East, of ISIS and all of that, is just a speed bump on history’s highway. The Middle East is not very important. Silicon Valley is much more important. It’s the world of the 21st century … I’m not speaking only about technology. In terms of ideas, in terms of religions, the most interesting place today in the world is Silicon Valley, not the Middle East. This is where people like Ray Kurzweil, are creating new religions. These are the religions that will take over the world, not the ones coming out of Syria and Iraq and Nigeria.”
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Excerpts from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. “The book’s main thesis is a differentiation between two modes of thought: “System 1” is fast, instinctive and emotional; “System 2″ is slower, more deliberative, and more logical.” Continue reading
Daniel Kahneman: Riddle of experience vs. memory
This talk runs 20 min and I realize most of you won’t invest that much time. And I’m not sure I can summarize, but let me try: There are the experiences in our lives… and our memories of those experiences. And they are not the same. Our “happiness” ( a word that no longer has much useful meaning) has more to do with the latter.
As for the future? Kahneman says “we think of our future as anticipated memories.”
My understanding (based on my reading on this topic): The past and the future are delusions, stories. Created by the mind to protect the ego. Only now -this moment- has any reality.