ON JUDGEMENT: “IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO”

Kindly consider this: 2+2.

I can bet what comes to your mind. Four right?

Question: Did you think before the number [four] came to mind? No, I guess. Guess what?: that’s your unconscious in action and Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahnemen refer to this as the system 1 (fast thinking).

However, if I ask you to consider this: 754*53. You probably know how to handle this but you have to go through your systems 2 (slow thinking) and dish me the answer.

If there is anything I learnt from Blink by Malcom Gladwell, it’s the ability to trust my instinctive judgement better. Some people tend to trust their conscious decision and are completely uneasy with the system 1, it turns out that there are several occasions where the unconscious judgement is far superior to the rational judgement.

Have you ever spotted a lady (or a guy) and the within a split second you knew “she (he) was just right” Have you considered why? When we meet someone, we don’t run through the list of desired qualities [our conscious mind comes up with], on the other hand, the system 1 takes over. In fact, a body of research has shown that – for the most part – It turns out that: “our conscious explanations regarding our ideal romantic partner have very little connection to whom we really end up liking”.

Or the story of a firefighter who ‘felt’ something was wrong and told his co-workers to evacuate the building. The next minute the whole building collapsed. He couldn’t give any reason when he made that decision (thanks to system 1!) only to invent rational explanations for the decision later: he gave some weird description of the dynamics of the fire that wasn’t just right.

It seems the unconscious come to our aid when we don’t have luxury of time (and vice versa)

Also, our impressions are generated by our experiences and of course – social learning.

You are probably not a firefighter. If you assume the position of the firefighter above, how will you have fared? Probably, pretty bad. Why? Your unconscious wouldn’t be able to help, because your repository of experience as a firefighter is completely void.

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So which is the best? I do think, for the most part, the ideal best-decison-maker-in-the-world will not exclude the intuitive judgement nor its rational counterpart. Afterall “It takes two to tango”

CHARLES DARWIN’S CAREER CHOICE, AND HOW TO BUILD A THRIVING STATE

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The development of a state is contingent on the success and failure of the comprising individuals; and the most positive impact of such individual to the state is one that apparently delivers the best. So, what defines the best?...

Born in 1809, Charles Darwin – dubbed ‘father of evolutionary biology’ – is one of the most hallowed scientists in the history of man. Still, his choice of a career is all but riveting. His father who wanted him to toll the family lane by becoming a medical doctor was irked by Charles’s interest in becoming a naturalist. Young Charles was touted for his teeming interest in natural history, nature and collecting. In his Autobiography he wrote ‘the passion for collecting, which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate’. This statement opines a man who knows his strength, and equally brave enough to follow his passion. In stark contrast – when he was in medical school, he found the lectures boring and surgeries upsetting. Later in life he was ‘destined’ to discover the theory of evolution and natural selection.

In addition to Charles Darwin’s seminal discoveries that revolutionized science, in my opinion – his life has divulged the key to build a thriving environment: the best we can do for our society is to engage in activities – passable on the path of the law – that brings out our very best.

What are my strengths? Where lies my passion? What are weaknesses? How do I perform? These are questions that should reverb in our minds, and ‘roll in our brain’ before we make decisions on what to do in life. Logic then opine that we should build on strengths – not weaknesses – and follow our passion. However, extant environmental conditions might be unsteady, the economic clime – deserting. More often than not, this usually lead people to make decisions that drives a mediocre career, and on the extreme side – lead to an umbrageous debacle.

Peter Drucker stated in his classic book – Managing oneself:  ‘Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person – hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre – into an outstanding performer.

MY MIT PhD APPLICATION, AND THE 3 IRREFUTABLE BIOLOGICAL LESSONS OF HISTORY.

First, life is competition. Here is Will and Ariel Durant in their 1968 book: Lessons of History

“Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life – peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food”

I have met folks who have repudiated competition, at almost every level. “I dislike competition” so they will say. Even more ridiculous, “I don’t compete”. As if nature request an opinion to make her decisions. The pith is, whether you like it or otherwise, you are in for a great deal of competition, long before you are conceived: remember, the races of the spermatozoa is an upstream one. I applied to a PhD program at the MIT last fall, I thought I had a chance, and maybe I was right. But here is the reply I got:

“You a very fine candidate but due to copious amount of applications, we could not grant you an admission”

Well, that’s probably how an African young man ‘competes’ with a “Lui Chi Tang” in faraway Asia or a nerd from an ivy league. Don’t be fooled life is replete with competition.

Second, life is a selection:

“We are all born unfree and unequal: subject to our physical and psychological heredity, and to the customs and traditions of our group; diversely endowed in health and strength, in mental capacity and qualities of character”

Well, what’s is the odd of you being “successful” if you are born in the US versus a sub-Sahara African country. Or what is the odd of you becoming rich if you are born into a family of billionaires? High right? However, this is not to imply that once you are born poor you remain so. On the contrary, life is also replete of improbable success stories, albeit a deviation from the norm.

Third, life must breed: Durants wrote:

“Nature has no use for organisms, variations, or groups that cannot reproduce abundantly. She has a passion for quantity as a prerequisite to the selection of quality”

I remembered my social studies tutor in high school made us memorize functions of humans, and guess what number 1 on the list was: PROCREATION!