The Social Animal, by David Brooks. 2011 Short Books

The Social Animal, by David Brooks. 2011 Short Books

 

멋진 문장 하나. Chin on fist, cogitating alone deeply. 주먹 쥔 손 턱 괸 채 깊은 생각 홀로 든..( introduction에서 excerpt.)

 

David Brooks이 자주 언급하는 바, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. 이들을 백과사전에서 보면. “경제학 내의 전통적인 합리적 의사결정이론들은 인간의사결정의 합리성을 제고하기 위한 다양한 규범적 처방과 원리를 제시해왔다. 이러한 전통적 경제학 원칙들에서는 인간이 논리적 과정을 통해 대안들 간의 가중치와 우선순위를 정하여 기대효용(expected utility)을 극대화 하는 대안을 선택하는 의사결정을 하는 것으로 가정한다....카너먼과 트버스키는 의사결정과정에 대한 ‘휴리스틱스 이론’(heuristics and bias)를 발표해 합리적 의사결정이론에 한계를 지적하면서 인지심리학적 접근에 대한...... ‘사람들이 불확실성하에서 확률이론에 따르는 판단을 하는 대신 매우 단순한 판단과정으로 환원시키는 소수의 한정된 원리’....그러나 체계적인 오차인 바이어스를 유발함으로써 정확하지 못한 판단을 초래할 수 있을 뿐 아니라, 더 큰 문제는 의사결정자 자신이 이를 자각하지 못하는 데 있다.” 고 설명.

 

內표지: In the past 30 years we have learnt more about the human brain than in the previous 3000 – a scientific revolution has occurred. The unconscious mind, it turns out, is most of the mind- the place where the majority of the brain’s work gets done, where our most important life decisions are made, where character is formed and the seeds of accomplishment grow.

이 말은 또 뭐지? I must be in limerence because what I’m suffering from feels a lot like a love addiction and even a love madness at times.

 

introduction

x We are primarily the products of thinking that happens below the level of awareness.

xi ... have gone so far as to suggest that the unconscious mind does virtually all the work and that conscious will may be an illusion

 

xiii

you are ignoring the processes that determine what we want; how we perceive the world; what drives us forward; and what holds us back..

xix

The unconscious is impulsive, emotional, sensitive, and unpredictable. It has its shortcomings. It needs supervision. But it can be brilliant. It’s capable of processing blizzards of data and making daring creative leaps.

 

p.8

Men consistently rate women with attractive bodies and unattractive faces more highly than women with attractive faces and unattractive bodies.

 

p14.

Ninety percent of emotional communications is nonverbal. Gestures are an unconscious language that we use to express not only our feelings but to constitute them.

 

p15

Miller believes that humans learn the words so they can more effectively impress and sort out potential mates.

 

p206

Builders know that many home decisions are made in the first seconds upon walking in the door.

 

p317

Over the course of the relationship, most married couples are compelled to navigate a transition between passionate love and companionate love.

 

p318

After years of ascent and struggle. they had grown weary of surrendering themselves to others. In her book ‘The Female Brain’, Louann Brizendine writes that often a middle-aged woman “becomes less worried about pleasing others and now wants to please herself....With her estrogen down, her oxytocin is down, too. She’s less interested in the nuances of emotion; she is less concerned about keeping the peace; and she’s getting less of a dopamine rush from the things she did before, even talking with her friends. She’s not getting the calming oxytocin reward of tending and caring for here little children, so she’s less inclined to be as attentive to others’ personal needs.”

 

p334

It was characteristic of this fellow that he would talk about his service to the Vatican in order to get between a married woman’s legs.

 

p336

She was bruised and tender for weeks, and slightly different forever. She never committed adultery again, and the mere idea of it filled her with an intense

p439

they forget everything but their erections.

 

p441

He was largely immobile.

 

p459 Postscript

Our experience of ourselves are misleading.

We are not aware of most of what we see and sense around us, or even of how we are responding to it.

We are not who we think we are.

 

P 463

One thing we know is that we need both systems to thrive- the conscious and unconscious, the rational and the emotional.

 

p. 465

It is important to fail productively. First, as Harford puts it, you should seek out new ideas and new projects. Then yo

u should try new things on a small scale so that their failure is survivable. You should make sure each of your projects is insulated from the others so the failure of one doesn’t pull down the whole lot. Then you have to find a feedback mechanism so you can tell which new thing is failing and which is succeeding. Fight your natural tendency to loss aversion and kill the failing projects.

 

2016.7.12. 孟夏/讀了 鎭