Hello Juniors. Apologies for the lateness. I was feeling a but under the weather when I got home and I fell asleep so here's my late night extra credit. Let's say this assignment will close next Tuesday.
I'd like you to listen to the following podcast found here and ask the following question:
How much free will do we really have? How many choices do we make on a day to day basis that are indications of our "free will"?
Please be sure to answer this question, engage in discussion with others' comments, and introduce new articles/media to the discussion. This is a long episode so you don't have to comment on everything. In fact, I encourage you to only comment on one aspect of the episode and return to the discussion later on reading others' comments and build upon those. Let's create a cohesive discussion about free will. And of course, feel free to introduce SHV into the discussion.
I personally dont believe that there is much free will that we have. In the podcast, the guy says that we have freewill with relationships. Yes it's true that you can choose whether or not to be in one but it is not possible to always be with the one you want to be.
ReplyDeleteAs shown with the experiment involving Magic Number 7, there is not a lot of choices you can make based on free will because there is always something that will influence you from the outside world.
Back in the 1950s, a guy by the name of Miller tested to see average human could hold in their brains and it turned out to be around 7 random digits. So in this podcast, there was an experiment to see what happens to decision making when you have more than 7 digits. So participants were given a number and remember, some given 2 digit some 7. LAter when offered a snack of a chococlate cake or fruit salad, those with 2 digits choose fruit. 7 digits choose chocolate cake. This was really interesting, especially the fact that they were twice as likely to choose the cake. The brain is anatomically arranged into two systems, a rational deliberate in front and emotional unconsiouc in back. When giving the rational brain a 7 digit number to memorize, the rational gets too much to remember, thus emotion drive choices. Something as small as a 7 digit number can screw reason, how much free will can there possibly be?
In the world we will always be exposed to factors that will infulence us and make it impossible to choose. Like in the story, when Billy marries his wife, it wasn't really because he loved her, but because of underlying causes like being set for life.
I was interested with the Magical Number 7 experiment and decided to look for other experiments and found this.
http://brainz.org/ten-most-revealing-psych-experiments/
Well, as for whether or not we have free will, i have always disagreed. During the podcast, one of the talkers said that it's about the FEELING that drives choices. The simple yes/no will drive someone mad, and that it's the FEELING that makes the choices easier or harder to make. The one thing that made me question was, aren't feelings controlling us as well?
ReplyDeleteI've discussed this topic with my friends many times, and they have always had the majority idea that everyone has free will simply because they can make choices they WANT.
However, this feeling of WANT is what impels them to go against what i believe in (in order to win the argument of course). So technically, no one would ever have free will because they are encouraged by some factor that makes them want to make the decisions they make?
To make things clearer, I define free will as having the ability to do an action with no factor of any kind bolstering it. That is ultimately what free will is, right? So therefore, I believe that even this EMOTION and FEELING can be considered a factor that makes the choices we make, compelled by some force, WHICH in turn, makes the whole action independent of free will.
So, IN CONCLUSION, there is no free will in any aspect of life. Period.
Free will is, what I like to believe, the ability to make any choice you want without restrictions. Even if you are influenced in a certain way by societal norms or your own subconscious, that does not mean you are in some way restricted. The magic 7 experiment was interesting in regard to how we make our choices but how we make our choices has no effect on our free will.
ReplyDeleteI think the average human being will take everything into account when trying to make a decision and shouldn't make a certain decision just because s/he can. It's like on a multiple choice question test, there are (sometimes) many good answers but it is up to us to choose the correct one - or in life, choose the one that best suits us. We are not restricted in any way when making decisions. Just because we are influenced by outside factors does NOT mean we do not have the choices. We all CAN do anything we want but that may not be best for us. Sure, you can argue that we are restricted by the threat of not having a good job if you decide not to go to school or whatnot. However, even if you aren't restricted, you are still going to look out for yourself and be smart with decisions.
The guy above me said how feelings are factors in our decision but influences on our decision is very different from restrictions on our decision. If we did not have these influences, we would make every decision randomly.
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ReplyDeleteThis podcast claim that we have always been fighting to gain control of free will; we have always been struggling to obtain equal rights for males, then females and children for all races. Marriage, for example, used to be a factor that controlled many individual's lives for many many centuries. The author claims that we have freedom of choice with respect to everything. Now we have gay marriages, straight marriages, bis, and with so many available options in every single aspect of life, we become somehow disorientated and confused as to what we want. We are so privileged to the point that we are dissatisfied because we can not chose.
ReplyDeleteThe magic 7 experiment correlated with this idea because it demonstrates how our human mind, although presented with infinite possibilities and the freedom to chose, cannot make it's own decisions and must rely on outside influences to make its choices for them. This refutes the idea that we cannot possess true and obsolete free will simply because we are unable to be rational all the time.
I believe to a certain extent, we do have free will, but at the same time, just because these possibilities are offered to us does not mean that it is somehow the most appropriate option for us. There are pressures from society, and expectations from our people around us, that we are constantly making decisions based on our feelings and emotions. (Like Yejoon said) Some may argue that we do possess free will because our generation is flooded with opportunities that we can essentially pick any road to life. I disagree in that we are always going to be influenced by our surroundings and thus affecting our decisions.
I think that we, as humans, do have free will. Sure, our judgement is affected by many factors, such as our preocupations, and our tendency to overthink things. Sure, our brains might associate a cup of hot coffee with a guy being warm, or hot. Ultimately however, it is still our own minds that are controlling the situation. I believe that if one really hates a certain person, no amount of fancy smancy mind trickery will change that. In fact, not being affected by these mind "tricks" would make one the equivalent of that tumor guy in the podcast. Because of the tumor, he has no emotions. Although this results in him making decisions with pure logic, which some would call free will, it also results in him spending half an hour comtemplating the pros and cons of using a back pen vs a blue pen. To me, true free will is, in part affected by our emotions and this a quality that most people have.
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ReplyDeleteFree will is the ability to choose one's action and do what one wants. Yejoon, just because certain circumstances and temptations influence our decisions does not mean that we have no free will. We allowed those circumstances to make our decision for us. A man who hates his boss might decide to kill him, and he won't be released from jail if he says " I couldn't control myself, I was too angry." The man controlled his own muscles and therefore must take credit for his actions. He CHOOSE to kill his boss, from his two options: kill boss and don't kill boss. Annie is correct when she says if we didn't have influences we would make decisions randomly. By making decisions randomly we are not doing what we want. The number experiment illustrated that people who had to memorize 7 digits choose to eat chocolate cake while the people who had to memorize 2 digits choose to eat fruit. The podcast said that the choice had to do with the rational and emotional parts of the brain. The peoples choice was influenced by the number of digits they had to memorize, but in they end they CHOOSE what to eat. They didn't have to follow their emotions but they choose not to think out logically. People do have free will, and emotion does play a part in ones decision but a person does not have to listen to his emotion
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ReplyDeleteBefore listening to the podcast, I thought that free will truly did exist and that every choice we make is of our own free will. But after listening to the podcast, I am beginning to have doubts about the amount of free will that we truly have. Maybe even the things that we do on a day-to-day basis are all results of cause and effect. Perhaps a very subtle stimulus triggers us to do the things that we do or think the way that we do. These stimulus can be so subtle to the point where we find it natural and would never relate it to the things we think or do. The podcast gave a perfect example of this through the coffee experiment. The idea that hot coffee or warm in general relates to trust seems quite reasonable to believe. It seems especially true for toddlers and would explain why they tend to enjoy the comfort of being embraced by their mom.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting portion was when they spoke about the idea of priming, thinking about professors yielded better scores than thinking about soccer hooligans. The subtle things we do or think about can very much affect the things we do after. To conclude I'd agree with Karen in that our decisions are affected by our surroundings and that even the smallest change in anything just might tempt us to think a certain way or act a certain way.
"If [one is] influenced in a certain way by societal norms or [one's] own subconscious..." then one would be restricted. In terms of free will, one can somewhat separate them into physical free will and mental free will. Physical free will, like Annie is saying in which physically we could do whatever we want, can be seen in the beginning of the podcast, how he seemed to have an unlimited amount of options. Admittedly, one has free will in terms of the freedom to buy what we like for lunch. Annie could choose "C" for her scantron test; one could choose to wear the red shirt. However, how much free will on the more important things, does one really have? There are punishments and consequences for our actions, so even though in the moment, one has the physical option of doing what we want, in terms of freedom to do whatever one wants, society will punish one for acting a certain way. Another example is hypothetically if one chose not to attend Stuyvesant anymore, which at 16 by New York State law one is entitled to, one has what most people would consider the "free will" to do so. I am sure one would love to be successful and pull a Silicon Valley move, but it is highly improbable. One has their own choice of dropping out? I really do not. One will be punished in the long run because at this point in time; a college degree is a minimum to get anywhere. To get a "fancy" job, there is a set formula and dropping out is not one of them. One is restricted and limited. Just because one has the physical free will to just not attend school anymore, one does not have the mental free will to not conform to society's expectations surpass these restrictions.
ReplyDeleteBefore listening to the podcast, I thought we had free will. But after listening to different examples, and having my own thoughts, I do not think that our choice is really our choice.
ReplyDeleteWe often feel like we have free will because we think we can choose to do what we want to do. But the experiment with 7 digits shows that people are consciously going against their initial choice of choosing the chocolate cake. It is like people restrict their own will because chocolate cake is not healthy. Some may argue that it is their decision to go against their initial gut feeling, and that demonstrates free will, but I think it has more to do with how our choices are restricted by customs and the society. It's like we are given two choices, but we only have one rational choice.
Jennifer Zhou mentioned above that she technically has a choice of dropping out of Stuvesant, but she really does not have that option because it is just not a good choice. Her example really shows what I mean by we seem to have options, but we really do not.
Again, going with the same example, I do not think we the students have the choice of dropping out of Stuyvesant because we have been taught that way. In other words, the society expects us to act certain ways and choose one option over another. One may argue that the society cannot take away our free will. Technically, that may be true, but I think that is false because after years of living in the same society, we come to hold the same values and thoughts that this society feeds us, and treat them as our own. In the end, we literally become byproducts of the world, and lose creative thoughts.
Another thought I had was that living itself was not a choice given to us. We were born because we were born. There is no other reason why we are alive. It was not a choice, but we still accept it and continue to live. Dying is also not a choice given to most people. When we think of the term suicide, we think that only depressed people commit suicide. That is because our body has dozens of safeguards to stop us from harming ourselves. There are emotions, fear, phobias, reflex, etc, which all bias our decision and stop us from harming ourselves, so we don't just die because we choose to die. The term suicide is also very negative in nature because it just is. We were not taught that it was the negative thing, but we just knew. Our instinct comes with its own parameters to limit ourselves. Therefore, I think we were created with restrictions already set, which means that our "free will" is created with restrictions.
I believe that everybody's lives are not completely controlled by free will. Having to experience moments in one's life is what backs up one's future actions. One example would be if someone routinely does something, his/her body would be adjusted to perform that action everytime. It is basically a habit. The brain would be so used to it that an instantaneous message from there would be sent to the muscles. It becomes an involuntary action. Another example is when a moment makes such a huge impact in one's life that it changes how he/she perceive things. Everyime he/she sees a relation to it, a different reaction rather it be mentally or physically would occur compared to before the moment took place. Having to recall that specific incident is also involuntary.
ReplyDeleteOn 27:40, Steven Johnson had an experience where his wife almost died. The sound the wind created which led to the window breaking is the thing that triggers Johnson's mind to be prepared for another window breaking. His body involunarily takes action which now affects his everyday life.
You can also refer to Slaughterhouse Five's main character, Billy! He avoids his past life of war by building a shield of science fiction, consisting of the world of Trafalmadore. However, at his anniversary with Velencia, as soon as he hears the quartet singing his body reacts by becoming overwhelmed with sadness. To back this point up even more, he himself states that he DID NOT know why he acted that way! It was simply his emotions acting involuntary sensing his days from the war.
It sounds repetitive for me to state involuntary, involuntary, involuntary, but I feel that it is what proves to us that we do not have complete free will over our lives.
Heh. Found this picture when researching up on free will online.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/clar0841/psychblog2012/free%20choice.jpg
I still believe we have free will and can choose what we want. When Jennifer said that she would not drop out of school - this is her own choice. Because she is influenced by these societal ideals, she is deciding that staying in school would be the best possible choice for her. Sure, school sucks but she is choosing to stay for possible opportunities later in life. Jenn is not restricted from dropping out of school and can do so at any time. It is completely her choice! Just because she THINKS that she needs to stay at school to be successful does not mean she has to. She is imagining restrictions where there are none.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Matthew had commented that we do not choose to be born. True, we did not choose to be born, but our life is a product of our parents' choices! Maybe we cannot control what happened TO us but we can definitely choose what we think is best for us.
I do not believe that we have free will. After listening to the segment on the two extremes of emotion and rationality, I no longer believe that we have a choice in anything. Annie, you are saying that we do have a choice in everything based only on the fact that we have options. However, having options does not mean that we have free will. I believe the concept of free will is the idea that we can decide on something without any outside influences. Influences take away free will because it is technically no longer YOUR decision as this influence is pushing you in its direction. In that regard, I believe the only time we have this free will is when we are completely guessing like when we have a multiple choice question and we somehow don't know any of the answer choices.
ReplyDeleteIn the segment, they talk about emotion and rationality and how each of them influence decision and it mostly came down to emotion. Rationality does not really have much of an effect on your decision as we have that "feeble rational mind" said in the beginning of the podcast and it is easily broken down and overcome by the emotional mind when dealing with these big decisions. Our emotions are what kind of pushes us into making a decision and with that, our emotions are that outside influence. The segment talked about Elliot who had lost his emotions due to the tumor and he was no longer able to make simple decisions like choosing a brand of cereal or choosing what color pen to write with as he kept on analyzing. This is what brings me to believe that we don't have free will because we can't choose without that outside influence of emotion. On top of that, the man who has an overly active emotional mind due to that traumatic experience with his window caving in during a storm, can't HELP but get scared at the sound of wind near a window. With too much emotion, it's an automatic decision. And whenever you have a gut feeling from some decision, they say it is more like "an average of all the emotions that came from your past experiences" and you just happen to like that average. All decisions are governed by emotion and because of that, we're built without free will.
Complete rationality is not free will - there is only one correct, rational choice (assuming a constant weighting system).
ReplyDeleteElliot, who was reduced to an indecisive and unfeeling man, was not plagued with "too much rationality" per se, but rather a rationality which did not know how to compute decisions. He argued with himself about which traits outweigh the others. Since there are an infinite amount of factors related to virtually any choice in life, the only way to determine a system of decision-making is to state which subset of the factors is negligible, and therefore can not sway the ultimate decision. The television show NUMB3RS deals a lot with this type of problem.
If a pure rational choice is achieved, it would not be a free decision, because there is only one correct option.
For the moment, let's assume we do have free will. Your feelings are allowed to sway your opinion, and, as the podcast argues, your past experiences are considered. So those past experiences are at least partially affected by your past decisions. This recursively works back to the first decision you make as a small child, which by definition does not have any of your past choices influencing it. It is determined solely by the experiences that you can not choose. And so every decision you make is traced back to your initial conditions, and not your choice.
These arguments, however, do not take into account any "grey area" of choice. Many of our decisions are weighted towards one side or the other, but not to the extent that only one choice is possible. When I ate lunch yesterday, I chose to eat inside as usual. But today, I decided to eat on the wall because the weather was nice. This was on an impulse. It is my bet that more people ate outside today than on January 10th, due to the climate, but my point is that there still were those who did otherwise.
Free will is the fluctuation in magnitude of the various emotional impulses which drive one's choices.
This means that sometimes we will be fine with one decision while other times our emotions will be more powerful and we will change our minds.
Zachary
I think that we, as humans, do have free will. In the experiments, the Magic Number 7 and the coffee experiment, the brain is being affected to make this certain decision. But this doesn’t prove that we do not have free will. This only proves that the body likes this or that when faced with a circumstance. Humans can still choose to date whoever they want, what they want to do in life, etc. If there was no free will, there would only be one type of people in the world. Everyone would only have one choice and everything would be the same. But because there are diversity and difference in the world proves that free will does exist. In school, there are delinquents and then there are goody-two shoes. Both exist because these people CHOOSE to be either do well in school or just fail.
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ReplyDeleteWhat people perceive as free will because our brain is able to “rationalize” situations and “make decisions” isn’t free will. Slaughter House-Five used the terms machine: the tralfamadorians refer to people and all living things in the universe as machines. Well, when the two men talked about the man with his wife moving from the window a few seconds before it shattered because he had gut feeling and that gut feeling was due to the ability of the brain to unconsciously analyze the situation around us that any given moment and rationalizes the circumstances to create the gut feeling people have. This rationalizing isn’t actually free-will decision making because our brain, a small, complex machine, in the head is preprogramed to make the choices for each individual. Each person’s brain is predetermined to think a certain way by equipping each person with a certain personality that will make pre-determined decisions. Annie said that Jennifer’s choice to drop out of school it was her own choice and therefor her own free will. However, her reasoning of why not to drop out of school was made by her brain, a machine, structured so it she would make the choice not to drop out.
ReplyDeleteI believe that people do have free will.
ReplyDeleteWhen the podcast explored the thoughts of one of the 7-digit memorizers, it showed that while he was repeating the 7 digits in his mind, some voice, representing emotion, kept saying, “Cake. Get me the cake. Yummy. Frosting. Chocolate!” The speaker then states how emotion wins over reason easily and how “7 numbers is all it takes to screw up reason.” They imply that the people didn’t have a choice when they picked which snack they wanted. They chose whichever snack because they were forced to by the voice in their head.
They were forced by their emotion, so they don’t have free will? This is where I disagree. Why does it have to be a voice demanding cake? Why not a voice demanding the salad? It varies on who the person is. We have free will over our emotions, which “force” us to make everyday decisions. So in the long run, we are really choosing what we want to do.
When the speaker says, “7 numbers is all it takes to screw up reason,” I interpreted that as without reason, one will not have free will. However, in the scenario where the guy has his tumor removed, the person apparently loses his emotional parts of his brain. So, his mind consists only of logical reasoning. Shouldn’t he have complete free will then, since he can think out whatever choices he makes? Nope; he over thinks situations and takes forever to pick out items at work or while shopping. You need emotions to add that extra zing to help you decide. I believe that as long as you have a functioning emotional part of your brain, you have free will over your actions.
In our everyday lives, there are many scenarios in which we indicate our free will. We choose whichever cereal we want to eat based on what we desire. We choose to be gay, straight, or bisexual. There is nothing that can force one to do something against his or her free will, even in extraordinary situations like the one stated by Sean Chee: “The sound the wind created which led to the window breaking is the thing that triggers Johnson's mind to be prepared for another window breaking. His body involuntarily takes action which now affects his everyday life.” I highly doubt that once Johnson hears another window crack, he would uncontrollably dash to the bathroom. Or, in a highly insane but possible scenario, what if he becomes suicidal? He might just stand there and let whatever happen happen.
Also, I found this video pretty interesting although I didn’t quite agree with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZU05XZ4_jtk
It gets serious within the middle haha.
When I first looked at this assignment, I began to think about what I was going to write. I was going to say something like, "Of course we have free will. I only do what I want to do, and never what other people tell me." But having listened to this podcast, I see that that's no ENTIRELY true.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, my original idea still stands: We do generally have lots of free will. When given the option, humans generally lean towards a feeling of self-interest and do that which benefits them the most, that is, what they want the most. However, interestingly enough, it's possible that what we tell ourselves we want, isn't actually what we want. It's possible that our views can be manipulated by external sources, as seen in the podcast. For example, in the podcast segment with Elliot (the man who had a brain tumor), it's shown just how important minor external factors come into play when making decisions. Who would've thought that emotion could change a 2 second decision -- blue pen or black -- into a 30 minute challenge? Another example is the experiment with the people memorizing numbers and choosing snacks. Chocolate cake or fruit? You'd choose the snack that you find more appealing at the moment. But which one do you want? THAT isn't up to you. In the podcast, that was determined by the number of digits a test subject was thinking about. So although you'd be choosing your preferred snack, your decision is ultimately determined by something totally out of your control.
So sure, you can make all of the decisions you want. But is that decision truly yours? No, it's not. That decision is determined, not by your actual free will, but by multiple external factors that out of your control.
After listening to the podcast, I found myself connecting a lot of what I had heard to what I learned in Psychology class. Much of what was said seemed to be against free will, which is borderline to what Psychology is- the study of the human mind in a functional and predictable way. It goes completely contrary to the belief that we get from movies, which is that we can be whatever we want to be because we have the "will" or "choice" to do so. Maybe the very fact that we think we have free will is wired into our fundamental conscious being. For example, it would be extremely difficult to go through daily life and perform tasks if we believe that we have no control over ourselves. We'd just be creatures living on autopilot, not unlike Billy Pilgrim. Maybe the idea of "free will" is adaptive?
ReplyDeleteOne part that stood out to me was when the guy threw out the pounds of kidneys after he threw up from eating too much of it. In Psychology, I learned that this behavior has an evolutionary purpose. Our ancestors survived better by avoiding foods that caused them to be nauseous before, because it indicated rot, disease, or poison. This shows that the person did not throw out those kidneys due to his free will, but due to biological and evolutionary influences.
Another thing that this podcast reminded me of is an article that I have read, which said that college admissions people are more likely to admit applicants with stronger extracurriculars on their applications on days when the weather is sunny, and more intelligent, high-GPA based students if the weather is cloudy. Another thing that might affect whether they accept you or not can be based on whether they had a good lunch or are in a good mood. All these point to how our psychological programming and faults undermine the notion of free choice.
On the positive note, I think we have some extent of free will. For example, you have control over your own reality and perceptions based on what your conscious mind chooses to focus on. So if you're always optimistic, you can learn to ignore the negatives, and pick out the positives in a situation, which reiterates what the Tralfalmadores of SlaughterHouse 5 was trying to say to Billy Pilgrim. Furthermore, in an experiment, subjects were less likely to commit morally unethical acts such as cheating if they believed in free will compared to those who don't, who cheated more promptly and frequently. So free will can possibly exist after all to a limited extent. (David Lin period 7)
Free will is defined as the ability to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. It is often contrasted with determinism, which states that everything happens in conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. I believe that we do have free will, although it is often influenced by outside factors. For example, in the experiment involving the 7 digit memorization, the participants who had to memorize seven numbers ALMOST always chose chocolate cake, while those who did not ALMOST always chose the fruit salad. If the choice was predetermined based on the factors given, then everyone would have picked the same food depending on the numbers they had to memorize. It was an external factor that played into their decisions, but they still had a choice whether or not to get the chocolate cake. While their emotions did play a heavy role in their decision making abilities in their given conditions, it was their willpower that made the choice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all those who said that free will still does exist. Something that I could not help hearing throughout the podcast was the use of the word MAJORITY. It is not that we are forced to believe something as a result of our earlier experiences, but that we are inclined to do so because of our personal preferences. For example, in the coffee-impression test, the MAJORITY of people who held the cup of hot coffee liked Joe while the MAJORITY of those who held the cup of cold coffee did not. However, the people who ran the test seemed to ignore the fact that although there were very few of them, people did pick the opposite of what was expected. The test only shows that some number people have an emotional or instinctual inclination towards certain preferences. While these inclinations can influence a decision, there is nothing to say that people cannot override those preferences with time to pick a different side.
ReplyDeleteJohnny, in a much earlier post, said that Billy, in Slaughterhouse-Five was influenced to marry his wife because of his visions of being set for life. However, I could just as easily argue that Billy overcame his prejudice against his wife-to-be's appearance to marry her.
Erica Kwong Pd. 2
ReplyDeleteAlthough we may think we have free will, I found it interesting that there are so many external factors that "control" our decision-making. Remembering a 7-digit number vs. a 2-digit number makes us more likely to choose cake over fruit. People who held the hot coffee liked Joe more than the people who held the cold coffee. People who thought about professors did better than those thinking about soccer hooligans. The wind/window breaking experience causes Steven Johnson to associate that sound with danger. These are all examples of how just small things (memory, touch, thought, past experience) can affect the way we think.
I also found the story about Elliot, the man who had a brain tumor, very surprising. Emotion is very important because without it, one cannot make decisions, even simple ones such as picking a cereal or a pen color. Elliot just used logic and kept analyzing, going back and forth among his options. I'm the kind of person who likes to think things through. However, let's take a test situation. Many times I cannot explain that "gut feeling" about why an answer is correct. This brings me to my final point, where emotion is the driving force. Perhaps we are just in an illusion of free will, with our brains doing many things unconsciously without us actually "knowing".
I believe that we have free will, but our degree of free will is influenced by many factors such as previous experiences, emotions, and the subconscious. In the podcast, it was mentioned that the brain cannot comprehend more than one variable at a time, thus causing the podcast speaker to pick an non-tasty apple. This scenario proves that forces such as the brain can hamper our decision making skills. However, we still have the final thought in decision making. These factors only influence us similarly to what d764aa4a-4dee-11e1-975b-000f20980440 stated above.
ReplyDeleteThe podcast also mentions Elliot, a man who had to have surgery to removed his brain tumor. This has caused him to make decisions based on logical reasoning instead of emotions. Elliot was said to be achieving his "American Dream" similarly to Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. If Willy had a similar surgery, would this have lead him to realize the inherent flaw in his definition of success (being well liked)?