Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky enlightened the world with their book “Thinking Fast and Slow” which explores the common human errors that arise from heuristics and biases.

Fast thinking brain is fast and Energy Efficient and Error Prone . Slow thinking is conscious, energy conscious and error prone as well. What could go wrong with systems like this?

To be honest I am surprised that anything goes right. A program called evolution has weed out the most obvious bugs for at least long enough for our ancestors to be able to reproduce and raise some offspring. Real trouble gets when we get older I guess?

What’s funny about our operating system is that although we have these two systems, our brain still prefers by automatic the fast system. Fast system is so energy efficient in comparison to the slow system that if it can be solved quick and easy, we would very much prefer that.

This tendency and bias towards fast system creates challenges such as our mind jumping to conclusions about things we don’t know, but know that we have jumped to a conclusion we know to be right.

Wiring for fast doesn’t stop with jumping to conclusions, fast mind is constantly looking for something familiar, something easy way to solve this thing and get to the next. We are living in societies where we want more and faster. Fast feels good.

Although our biological wiring is what it is, thankfully we have the slow system that allows as to transcend momentarily it at first and then maybe more permanently if we keep at it as patiently as Buddha for example.