Politicians and voters have split into two, irreconcilable camps. Each camp is certain that its view of reality is right, logical and productive and that the other group is wrong, irrational and dangerous. These opposing dogmatic views inhibit cooperation for the common good at a time of national crisis. How have we come to this? How can we decide what to do?
In his New York Times bestseller “How We Decide,” Jonah Lehrer describes how we select what we believe and how we choose what to do. The apparent bad news is that few of our beliefs or decisions are rational. The actual bad news is that our most rational beliefs are likely to be at odds with reality while our most rational decisions are likely to disappoint us.
Our brains make our decisions, and this book reveals how they operate. When a brain makes its best decisions, as measured by numerous controlled experiments and long-term results, it takes into account emotions, memories, pleasure and pain centers, centers of empathy, and thousands of other subtle and undefined things. These centers compete for a variety of alternatives with varying intensities directly measured using FMRI scans. The brain is an ongoing, primarily non-rational argument which makes one compromised, partially satisfying choice after another. Our rational explanations for what we believe and what we do are, as Jonah Lehrer puts it, more that of lawyers picking and choosing reasons that, post facto, justify us. They are often persuasive but seldom accurate.
After we choose, our pre-frontal cortexes set out to whip other brain centers into shape, teaching them to ignore data which contradicts that choice while enhancing and changing memories to support it. It behaves like most Generals, Politicians, Popes and CEOs who systematically eliminate dissension in the ranks after choosing a course of action. The payoff for suppressing dissension, conflicting information and conflicting memories is a release of dopamine which produces a sense of pleasure and well being. Dopamine, not objectivity, guides our personal sense of rightness.
Reason is one of the last processes that evolved in the human brain. It is also one of the weakest. A healthy brain has thousands of other processes which enable people to be creative, playful, empathize with others and anticipate their reactions. Psychopaths and sociopaths are actually more rational than healthy people because they lack fear sensations from their amygdalas and empathy for the feelings of others from their mirror neurons. These Dr. Spocks (Star Trek) are dangerous and malicious because certain, tiny, regions of their brains are damaged. The damage may be from physical causes or from emotional traumas, particularly abuse or isolation in early childhood.
This might not be a comfortable book for those convinced that Christianity is the source of ethics and morals. Controlled and repeated experiments demonstrate that healthy brains have built in ethics and morals based on emotions and empathy for others; which the 10 Commandments and the New Testament merely codify. Even healthy chimpanzees exhibit some ethical behaviors!
Jonah Lehrer’s colorful book is packed with relevant stories about airline pilots and football quarterbacks (and the rational, but useless tests the NFL employs to predict their performance) and a few well chosen metaphors. He worked as a technician in a neuroscience lab, but he is first and foremost a top-notch writer who knows how to make difficult scientific topics clear and fascinating. Chapter headings include: The Quarterback in the Pocket, The Predictions of Dopamine, Choking on Thought, The Moral Mind, The Brain is an Argument and The Poker Hand.
Ed Lee
For more information on the book and its author:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/books/review/Johnson-t.html
