So I’m sitting on a plane right now coming home from a trip from Richmond, Virginia. As I was trying to pass the time I began to think. I was thinking about the stories in the in flight magazine about a guy's cat who is such a compulsive eater it figured out how to open the fridge. I pondered on the pictures of this guy’s art all made of crayon. He doesn’t draw with them, he sculpts with them. I then began thinking about an article about research a behavioral economics teacher was doing regarding how tricky our brains are. He says that the difference between economic analysis and behavioral economic analysis is that traditional analysis assumes that we act rationally but behavioral economics says that we act (predictably) irrational. We apparently underestimate the effect of emotion and passion. For example road rage or marital spats where couples say awful things to each other. He feels that from an evolutionary standpoint emotions are designed to eliminate thinking. If a tiger was about to eat us we wouldn’t want to sit and think about what to do we’d just want to start running. On of his studies to show how irrational we are (particularly in our economic habits) included shocking people as part of a pretend study testing pain relievers. Everyone was given the same pill (vitamin C). Of the test individuals told that the pill cost $2.50, almost everyone said they felt better. Only half of the people told the pill cost 10 cents said they felt better. Another experiment offered people a Lindt truffle for 15 cents or a Hershey kiss for a penny. 73% chose the truffle (who wouldn’t). Given the choice between a Lindt Truffle for $14 or a kiss for free, 69% of people took the free Kiss (so maybe people can’t resist something free but come on people, it’s a truffle). This thought of people being irrational led me to wondering how much of our thinking is rational. I’m for sure not rational but I honestly think that I am rational when I actively choose to be. I also went on a mind wander about how much of how we view things or remember the past is actually how it really was. We all know people that you wonder what planet they live on because their perception of life clearly doesn’t match how the rest of us feel. But then I wonder how many people coming to the same consensus it takes to establish reality. I often act all high and mighty with the opinion that I know how it is does it turn out that I am I one of those people who is tragically (or maybe blissfully) unaware about how things really are. I’m sure all of the people I’ve dubbed “delusional” don’t feel delusional. HUMMMM. Things are feeling a little “Horton Hears a Who”. I guess I’ve now run on for a while with pointless rambling so I should reward you for reading this far. Unfortunately I’m not a great writer or a philosopher so I don’t actually have a profound point to this. My only consolation is I promise to end after two more thoughts. 1. Yes people can be irrational but there’s no real reason to try to predict irrationality because that to would be irrational. 2. A shout out to a “real” writer Dr. Seuss—I seriously doubt tomorrow we will all wake up and find that we are tiny specks being observed by a funny looking elephant but “Oh the thinks we can think if only we try”.
