Final Post #7

 How We Decide is a book that allowed Jonah Lehrer to educate his readers about the decision making process from simple obstacles that we are faced with every day to something as serious as landing a plane that is falling apart. Lehrer makes this complex topic simple and easy to read about by creating images by giving descriptive scenarios that we can either relate to or connect with through emotion. Lehrer taught us about decision making and the complexity of the brain, the processes, reactions, chemicals, statistics, and instinct. The intended audience of this book is anyone who just wants a better understanding of how we make decisions, something that seems so simple, but in truth is really complex.
Out of the whole book I found just a few thing that really caught my attention. For example the scenarios about sports. How its pretty much impossible for the brain to make the decision to throw the ball in a specific area, swing the bat at a certain time, when to pull up to shoot, etc. The brain honestly has no time to react to the conflict its faced with, so over time the brain just becomes trained to do these things. Now faced with the similar conflict it doesn't have to go through the whole process and can skip over parts of it and make the decision quicker.
I would recommend this book because its an easy read, fun, relatable, and informal.

Style #6

In my opinion Jonah Lehrer uses simple grammar for anyone from probably middle school and up to understand. The structure is simple and easy to follow. I personally enjoy the way he writes and the techniques that he uses. One thing in particular that I have noticed are his use of questions and question marks. After giving an example or a scenario he will be What just happened by asking questions and then answering them. This is helpful because he can understand what questions the reader might have and he can answer them. This helps me relate to his writing even more. Another thing that Lehrer does is summarize the chapter. The last paragraph of the chapter usually consist of a sentence kind of like, "So far, we've been exploring...." which helps me simplify all of what I have just read. This format that he uses is simple and helpful.

Confidence #5

Confidence is creating an opinion and expressing it with words and actions. Almost every day we argue at least once. It's human to fight. When we fight we create an opinion and express it with confidence. We stick with our side of the story and convince ourselves that we are right. Our brain tends to block out the other persons opinion and make us think that they are wrong. We choose to ignore the nagging. When we win an argument we can find ourselves signing in relief. Scientists use split brain patients to express this. 

Hi, myself can relate to the situation. I am human therefore I fight with other people. My family, friends, everybody at some point of another. A really good example would be fighting with my sister. There will always be some sort of rivalry between us so when I win an argument it just makes it that much better. We find ourselves both getting pretty heated about the topic and strongly expressing our different opinions. After much debate we and up getting to the bottom of it. Usually I lose because my sisters older but when I when I when I feel on top of the world. That's sigh of relief, that everything I worked for and argued for is finally right proven to be correct. It is arguably one of the best feelings. Jonah Lehrer uses situations that usually anyone can relate to on a daily basis to make situations more understandable and more relatable. 

Morals #4

       Morals are something you inherit over time. Things that your parents teach you about right from wrong and what is acceptable and whats not. Lehrer decides to go into depth about how complex moral decisions actually are. In any sane person's mind murder is wrong because over time the brain has structured itself to not hurt other people but sometimes we need to weight the consequences and bad decisions can be made.

          In the given scenario based on well-known philosophical thought puzzle, a man must decide to stop a trolley which is out of control and is given two options. The person could let the trolley go and kill five working men on the railroad or push a fat guy in front to stop the train but it would mean he would die too. 

"Greene argues that pushing the man feels wrong because the killing is direct: you are using your body to hurt his body. He calls a personal moral situation, since it directly involves hurting another person. In contrast, when you just have to turn the trolley on to a different track you aren't directly hurting somebody else, you're just shifting the trolley wheels; the resulting death seems indirect. In this case, it's an impersonal moral decision."

In the given excerpt Lehrer uses a similar template to the "they say I say" and establishing a counter claim. It was important for Lehrer to establish Greene's to notice the difference between personal and impersonal decisions. Every day we make these decisions by weighing the outcomes. Most of the people picked the superior option of killing one man instead of five. Lehrer makes the point that it is not based on where you live, what country you are in, gender, etc. the moral decision is to hurt less people. 

Synopsis #2

          In my selected book, "How We Decide" much was talked about within the first few sections. The first chapter brings up the game of football, the duty of the quarterback and how important his actions are on the field. First Lehrer give statistics of  the famous New England Patriots second-string quarterback Tom Brady. Lehrer brings up the fact that Brady was an underdog. No one really wanted him and in fact he was the 199th pick in the 2000th draft. You could say he wasn't built for the NFL and definitely wasn't expected to go as far as he did. Quarterbacks are relied on to make the most important decisions on the field, and the toughest thing about it is that they have to make dozens at once. Football players are required to take a test and while some of the best players scored lower than average and vise-versa.

          Lehrer does an amazing job on creating a picture in your mind. He explains the process from the snap of the ball. Where does he throw it? While having people running to attack him he only has seconds to complete an important task. He has to make a decision and he has to make it quick. He has to predict what is going to happen next, where the defense is going to run to, where your own players are going and most importantly he has to time it right. Brady says that he can barely even recognize when he makes those decisions on the field, its like his brain is doing it for him. 

          Off the topic of sports Lehrer gives a more relatable scenario. He talks about mental illnesses and the effects that it not only has on the victim but the surrounding peers. For example a man had a tumor near his brain removed and everything changed from that day on. The man had changed completely, had no sense of decision making or emotional attachment. He spent hours picking a parking spot and wasted so much time on unimportant decisions. He wasn’t sure what he was doing was right or wrong. From this point on Lehrer describes the scientific parts of the brain. He does a great job informing the reader about front parts of the brain such as the front orbital cortex and its functions. He brings up juices or chemicals in the brain like dopamine and how it’s used in real life scenarios that we can relate to.

How I Decided #1

Jonah Lehrer author of many books mostly focuses on topics of psychology, which is something that interests me. His famous book, How We Decide led Lehrer to write small blurbs in The New Yorker and other famous magazines.

After given the long list of books to choose from for this assignment I thought to myself, how am I going to pick one book? How am I going to decide? Ironically I found this one.

Last semester I took up and independent study about why we do the things that we do and decision making and this book in particular peaked my interest. 

The blurb on the inside cover of the book explains a little about what the book is going to teach me. A lot of facts and relatable situations are going to be talked about. It's always good to understand things to the fullest, therefore if I learn a little more about decision making I could make better decisions and or understand other peoples decisions as well.