“Can you just get to the point?”
Kahneman takes the long way around to get to his point, but it’s a case of building up the foundation of later ideas.
To put this another way, Kahneman all throughout the book says essentially “remember what I just said here, it’s going to be important later on in the book”
He lays a perfect foundation for the hard hitting punches in later chapters.
His comments on intuition have me the most interested.
I have learned to doubt my own long held ideas when reading. God as my ultimate protection, to be sure, but also, the sureness of the work God has done in me! What I’m talking about is my willingness to believe that I may be biased, allows me to challenge all my beliefs. At least part of this ability comes from my having lost heart with all that I believe in after the failure of my first marriage. The picture is of a pile of books laying in front of an empty book case. Each book that’s back on the shelf is more solid than before.
For instance, I am a tried and true believer in intuition.
“The complex integration of large amounts of information
Carl G Jung
Kahneman convincingly shows that what we may think is intuition can be something confused with fears, hopeful enthusiasm, and being subtly manipulated.
When certain factors of any given situation remind us, consciously or unconsciously of previously bad outcomes… what seems like intuition is merely fear. He offers a tangible way to figure out how to differentiate between them. It’s all about reliable, and timely feedback.
He cites the difference between a car driver learning the finer points of steering around curves in the road vs. The pilots of large ships. Immediate feedback vs delayed feedback.
I have a friend who learned how to bake bread, as the new owner of an established bakery. The feedback via customers was brutally honest, as well as his own propensity to pursuing excellence. Slight changes in freshness of the ingredients, room temperature, proof time (how long it is given to rise) and I’m sure I’ve forgotten or do not even know the other factors. All of these things gave him validity feedback.
My own experience of this was the realization one day that I could correctly “guess the fare” of would be passengers from as much as 2-3 blocks away. If I could see them, I could guess. The three choices are, bus pass, cash, or a story.
What story?
Passenger boards bus: “my friend, took my wallet, and I didn’t know it, until just now and I’m going to get it from him”
Do intuition and anxiety feel the same?
Question: why do I suddenly feel uneasy about something ?
Regardless of these things, even when it turns out to be intuition, I always follow up any intuitive thought with my rational senses.
Kahneman would classify intuition in the first of two systems.
Running Down Vimy 