System 1: Thinking Fast
Dr. Daniel Kahneman spoke of a two system concept, with which we can use to visualise the inner workings of our thinking, and the forces which govern our decision making. The first is System 1 (S1). System 1 can be thought of as the part of our brain that is fast thinking. System 1 doesn’t represent any physical side or half of the brain, but conceptually it is responsible for our intuition, automatic judgement and subconscious analysis. For example:
2 + 2 = …
Before you even got to the equals sign, you were able to draw up an answer that is accurate and automatic. System 1 operates with no voluntary control, and often calculates very complex patterns of ideas. Many examples Kahneman uses to demonstrate this include:
Detecting that one object is more distant then the other
Bread and …
Detecting hostility or passive aggressiveness in a conversation
Driving on a long empty road etc.
All of the decisions which concern System 1 are automatic, and more importantly require little or no effort — this will come into play very soon. Many of these are innate within us: primal instincts help us to avoid losses, understand our environment and detect danger. Others are developed with prolonged practice. These are called learned skills. We weren’t born with the ability to walk on two feet, read social situations or recall the capital of France, but over time we have gotten better and better to the point where these are automatic. Learned skills can progress so far to the point of mastery, such as the intuition of Magnus Carlson finding the best move or Lionel Messi reading the play and giving the perfect pass almost lazily.
You even could not refrain from understanding the simple sentences you read in your known language. “I am going to the grocery store”. This required no effort to understand, and even if you wanted to, you likely couldn’t. This is System 1.
System 2: Thinking Slow
The deliberate and intentional counterpart is System 2 (S2). System 2 is analytical, methodical, and responsible for tying together your thoughts in an orderly fashion. It allocates attention to the mentally demanding tasks, and is often associated with agency, concentration and calculations. Look at the following problem for example:
17 x 24 = …
S1 understands immediately this is a multiplication problem, and has a vague intuition that the answer isn’t 100 or 10,000, but you are unlikely to be sure that the answer is not 568. If you decide to undergo the calculation and work out the answer, a few things might happen:
The computation becomes mentally strenuous
Holding the material in your memory becomes burdensome
Your muscles tensed slightly
Your heart rate increase
Someone observing you closely would see your eyes dilate
until you find the answer (408), after which you return to a more relaxed state. S2 activities all feature some level of attention like taking a drivers test, parking in narrow spaces, searching for your friends in a crowd of people, or reading through complex logic. We budget out our limited capacity for attention, assigning it to the activities we have at hand. If the attention required exceeds the budget allocated, we perform poorly in the activity. You could not both take a math test and plan a detailed holiday itinerary at the same time. Both are demanding, and the sum of required attention exceeds your capacity. We can multi-task, but if the activities are anything more than low effort, we fail in performing well. Intense focus can cause people to become blind. The Selective Attention Test by Daniel Simons on YouTube is a testament to this.
The Two System System
The interaction between the two systems governs our understanding of information and decision-making while we are awake. S1 is in constant operation, collecting and managing information, drawing conclusions and monitoring the world around us. S2 generally operates in a low-effort, comfortable state, taking in and endorsing suggestions made by S1 which form what we know as beliefs and voluntary action. S2 is called upon when S1 faces any difficulty, or if our model of the world is violated in anyway. Fish don’t fly, cats don’t bark, people aren’t overtly naked in public and Ben Simmons still can’t shoot. S1 decides what’s familiar and S2 is mobilised if anything seems out of place. It is also charged with regulating our behaviour. When the impulsive S1 suggests that we should cuss out our boss it’s generally the regulatory S2 that puts a stop to it.
Now that the groundwork has been laid for this line of thinking, I’m going to leave it here for this week. Next entry we will dive more into the consequences of the limitations of each system, and hopefully how we can rectify them. Thank you for your support, I’ve had some really great feedback recently on the entries. Auf Wiedersehen.
🔗 Sources
Kahneman, D. Thinking Fast and Slow. Penguin Books.
Fun video to check out: here