- Supersense - Bruce Hood

- Why we are not rational lke we think we are.
- Rationalists are wrong Our decisions aren't based on reason ..we are very selective on our memory etc
- We are biased to believe in the supernatural e.g. We think we can sense when people watch us etc (it's not true)

- babies register surprise to magic tricks - Children naturally quickly come up with bizarre theories of how the world works. Useful to try to quickly understand , but some things are misconceptions i.e. ANTHROPORMORPHISM giving inanimate objects human quality - talking to toys etc but adult superstitions are built upon this brain process
- Education is less powerful than this ingrained thought system - intituition often trumps logic- especially under stress we revert to this childish thinking ...see how we talk to our computers.

- Somethings like sport are so random so we resort to superstition to explain ... lucky jumper etc
- Also the more dangerous or unpredictable the situation the more superstitious we are. Again this helps us feel in control.

- The idea that mind separate from body is a convenient belief cos opens up many possibilities.

- His theory of religion is that it evolved as it helps society bind - if something is supernaural then money can't buy it..any people in the group who violate it get kicked out the group

On Amazon GREAT FOR CRITICAL THINKERS, On Groks

- Again cos the brain doesn't work the way we think is does, so there are techniques to use it better.
- memory pay attention - Use association
- open mind lateral think
- don't miss sleep schedule - lights off
- challenge brain novelty not repetitive sudukou etc repet

- memory is not a store just how patterns are triggered in our brain that's why it's not perfect

On Amazon rave reviews, On Groks

- We have simplified models of the world which is OK , but we stick to them cos we evolved to live in a different world. We don't adapt to changes cos we have elvolved automatic behaviour.

- Automatic behaviour is useful for doing-up shoelaces not for driving

- seems to be about re-evaluating everyday things and hidden consequences.
..... Like our real energy use is 100 continuous lightbulbs worth, but we don't see it.

- Problems with Self organising systems - markets work when there is equal buyers and sellers, but when everyone is buying or everyone is selling then the market is unstable.

-In Groups : Groupness e.g. NASA
- 1. outsiders kept telling them there's something wrong .. They wouldn't listen cos these people were from outside.
- 2. A kind of confirmation bias - everytime it worked "see it did work, we are right". This didn't alter the fact it would crash 1 time out of 40.

- Groupness happens in business a lot, won't take in outside information - The solution is to shuffle employees.

- Book On Amazon negative reviews (seemed good guy to me one said "I was surprised by how negative some of the reviews of this book are. It seems that people who read Gonzales' previous book, Deep Survival, were disappointed in this one because they expected a very different kind of book."),

On Groks

- rigid way of thinking that causes it.

- Someones summary

- 1 Exposure Anxiety - Your need to appear strong and your fear of appearing weak makes you overcompensate and become aggressive unnecessarily;

- 2 Causefusion -- you confuse one cause with another or look for only one cause where there may be many;

- 3 Flatview - you look at life or a problem with only one lense, one dimensionality; you look at life reductively;

- 4 Cure-allism -- you think one size fits all, you think one solution can be applied to many different problems;

- 5a Info-misers -- hold onto information or knowledge like a miser, thinking it makes you more powerful and stronger in the competition,
- e.g. Sadam Hussein ddn't give his generals enough info

- 5b. Info-avoiders - you avoid new information or new knowledge altogether, thinking your own information and knowledge is superior;

- 6 Mirror Imaging -- you think everybody thinks, feels, and behaves as you do; you don't try to see things as others may see them; and

- 7 Static Cling -- you refuse to accept and work with change.
- e.g. Edison denied the advantages of AC over DC

- Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions - Zachary Shore
- On Amazon, On ITC

- overlaps on last one

- again on how our thinking is bad ..techniques to get round hard wired bad stuff

- Evolution is not slick. Rather it uses cooption so it makes us clumsily designed
e.g. - e.g. cooling feathers become wings
- e.g. back bone is a make do thing from 4 legged animals

- Likewise Language is a duct tape job - why breathe and speak through same hole so it's inefficient.

- Memory is inefficient
- Confirmation bias is built in cos of how memory works

- Techniques to improve
- 1. look at alternatives
- 2. understand our logic has 2 parts : Reflex first then logic
- 3. Memory - chunking 222 456 etc
- 4. So to achieve - cultivate routines to counteract bad ruts
- 5. don't watch so much TV do something more pleasurable

- pleasure - we try to trick ourselves anxiety is a waste.

- accept brain is not optimal

On Amazon mixed reviews, On Groks

- should do A Summary maybe ?