Latest / The You Project / #2177 Wisdom vs. Intelligence - Prof. Barry Schwartz

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#2177 Wisdom vs. Intelligence - Prof. Barry Schwartz · The You Project

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Speaker 1: Good a team. Welcome to another installment the You Project
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Speaker 1: as harps. Who else would it be. I hope you
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Speaker 1: had a great weekend. I hope you're having a great
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Speaker 1: week today. I'm chatting with a like minded, much smarter
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Speaker 1: than me, but like minded guest who has a facin
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Speaker 1: long standing fascination with human behavior and psychology and why
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Speaker 1: we think can do and behave and act and respond
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Speaker 1: and live and interact and intersect the way that we do.
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Speaker 1: Barry Swartz, Welcome to the You Project PROFT. Thank you
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Speaker 1: so much for joining us. You are truly held in
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Speaker 1: high esteem. So I'm humbled by your presence and I'm
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Speaker 1: very grateful to have a chat with you. So thanks
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Speaker 1: for being on the show.
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Speaker 2: He's going to be humbled and it's my pleasure to
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Speaker 2: be with you.
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Speaker 1: Well, you're kind of a big deal, So you're a
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Speaker 1: big deal in a particular pond.
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Speaker 2: You know.
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Speaker 1: It's like you know those people who in their field,
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Speaker 1: they're like a bit of a megastar, but when they're
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Speaker 1: in another room, nobody knows who they are. That's the
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Speaker 1: case with you.
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Speaker 2: But you know, there's a wonderful economist with psychological orientation
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Speaker 2: who wrote a book years ago called choosing the right
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Speaker 2: pond exactly. That's and that's really that's the that's the secret.
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Speaker 1: I think. So it's like sometimes I go into a room,
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Speaker 1: either a little literal room or a metaphoric room, and
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Speaker 1: I feel like, oh, yeah, I'm I'm not the dumbest,
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Speaker 1: I'm okay in here like I'm. And then I go
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Speaker 1: into another another room and I'm like, no, I'm actually
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Speaker 1: an idiot. It's all contextual.
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Speaker 2: It is.
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Speaker 1: Like intelligence. Intelligence is a.
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Speaker 2: Spectrum, right, yes, and it's also very much domain specific.
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Speaker 2: You know, let me loose in a wood shop and
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Speaker 2: I won't look like I've had one hundred years of education.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Same, give me, give me any kind of tool
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Speaker 1: and any kind of mechanical.
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Speaker 2: Problem, yeap un the same way, you do not want.
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Speaker 1: To see the outcome because it won't.
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Speaker 2: Be exactly.
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Speaker 1: I Was there a point in your your evolution and
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Speaker 1: your journey as let's call it a study of humans,
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Speaker 1: an observer of human behavior and outcomes and so on.
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Speaker 1: Was there a point in your early life where you
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Speaker 1: became really curious about why people do stuff just for me?
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Speaker 1: There was I'm wondering if there was, like or did
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Speaker 1: you just have an evolving kind of interest in psychology
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Speaker 1: and all the surrounding stuff.
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Speaker 2: No, it was really like a switch getting thrown in
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Speaker 2: my case. And when I started university, I signed up
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Speaker 2: for an introductory psychology course, not knowing what it was.
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Speaker 2: It just fit my schedule and it met requirements, and
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Speaker 2: I was blessed to have as a teacher one of
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Speaker 2: the most illustrious psychology professors in all the world, a
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Speaker 2: man named Philip Simbardo, best known for the Prison Study.
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Speaker 2: But he was incredibly charismatic and dynamic, and from that
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Speaker 2: point on, all I wanted to do was study psychology.
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Speaker 2: And you know, there is a wonderful line from a
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Speaker 2: literary critic named LANELD Trilling who said, it is the
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Speaker 2: job of the poet to make the mysterious familiar, and
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Speaker 2: the familiar mysterious. And the thing I learned in that
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Speaker 2: introductory psychology course is that all kinds of things that
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Speaker 2: I completely took for granted a second nature were really
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Speaker 2: mysterious puzzles. How did we do that? How do we
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Speaker 2: do that? How do we see the world accurately? How
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Speaker 2: do we learn to speak all these things that just happen?
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Speaker 2: It's sort of miraculous that they happen, and a lot
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Speaker 2: of psychology is really trying to take these things that
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Speaker 2: we just take for granted and explain them to us. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: and so I was hooked from then on.
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Speaker 1: And I think about this all the time, like the
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Speaker 1: fact that right now, thousands of people listening to you
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Speaker 1: and I chat And then I think, well, none of
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Speaker 1: those people have the same brain or the same mind,
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Speaker 1: or the same story, beliefs, values, journey, like they're all unique.
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Speaker 1: And so they're listening to the same conversation with the
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Speaker 1: same men about the same topic, but no one's having
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Speaker 1: the same experience because exactly on top of the stimulus,
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Speaker 1: which is you and me, they're responding to that, they're
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Speaker 1: interpreting that, and some are going to go, this is fascinating,
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Speaker 1: and the some are going to turn it off.
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Speaker 2: Yes, so we may all already have lost.
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Speaker 1: Some that's true, and that do you think that out?
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Speaker 1: What don't you speak to if you would, rather than me,
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Speaker 1: preface it with something or lead you in a direction,
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Speaker 1: Tell me about theory of mind, Tell me about the
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Speaker 1: value in or lack of value, the value in understanding
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Speaker 1: someone else's in the moment experience or reality, or what
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Speaker 1: they're thinking, and are we any good at that or not?
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Speaker 2: Well, it's hard to imagine being able to live in
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Speaker 2: social groups and maintain any kind of harmony without being
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Speaker 2: able to get inside other people's heads, at least figuratively. So,
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Speaker 2: you know, as we're having this conversation, I will be
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Speaker 2: continually asking myself for what did that question? What is
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Speaker 2: that question really trying to get at, you know, And
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Speaker 2: I'll try to provide an answer that is consistent with
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Speaker 2: my interpretation for why you ask the question, and you,
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Speaker 2: in turn, will take what I've said and turn it
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Speaker 2: into another question based on your reading of my mind.
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Speaker 2: And so I think mind reading is a prerequisite for
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Speaker 2: being able to live in a society, and of course
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Speaker 2: we're very imperfect at it, and that's part of what
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Speaker 2: makes life so interesting and also what makes it so challenging.
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Speaker 2: You know, we tend not to have our hearts on
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Speaker 2: our sleeves, so I have to make inferences about what's
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Speaker 2: going on with you, and sometimes they'll be wrong. And
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Speaker 2: if we have a good relationship, you'll correct me, and
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Speaker 2: you'll correct me gently because you want to maintain the relationship,
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Speaker 2: and I'll do the same with you. But you know,
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Speaker 2: and it's quite interesting. There are studies of kids and
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Speaker 2: when they develop so called theory of mind, and I
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Speaker 2: find them incredibly fascinating because this is one of these
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Speaker 2: things that we just take for granted. Essentially, as soon
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Speaker 2: as we have any kind of conscious awareness, we have
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Speaker 2: a theory of mind. So it's hard to imagine not
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Speaker 2: having one, you know, but one you realize that kids
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Speaker 2: age two three don't have one, and they when you
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Speaker 2: give them little tasks with with you know, dolls in
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Speaker 2: a toy room, and it's clear that they can't put
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Speaker 2: themselves into the heads of the dolls and and tell
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Speaker 2: us what they think the dollars are thinking. And somehow
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Speaker 2: that emerges, and it's it's sort of miraculous, you know,
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Speaker 2: it leads you. It leads some people to wonder how
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Speaker 2: far down the phylogenetic chain theory of mind goes. You know,
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Speaker 2: we know that animals are communicators, yes, but what we
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Speaker 2: don't know is what they're, as it were, thinking when
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Speaker 2: they communicate, and what they're thinking when they receive a
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Speaker 2: communication from a you know, a member of the species.
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Speaker 2: And there's lots of lots of debate and interesting conversation
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Speaker 2: and clever experiments to try to see into the theory
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Speaker 2: of mind of creatures other than people.
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Speaker 1: That is fascinating, I think. I mean, I don't know
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Speaker 1: anything about that, but my feeling is a lot of
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Speaker 1: animals that humans tend to anthropomorphize animals in that we
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Speaker 1: think that they think yes, and so when we think
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Speaker 1: about thinking, we think about how we think. Well, maybe
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Speaker 1: they do download information or energy or so maybe they're
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Speaker 1: they're getting information that we're not getting and they're responding
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Speaker 1: to that. But it's not cognition in the way that
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Speaker 1: we experience. I wouldn't think.
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Speaker 2: But it's hard to know how it's different. You know,
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Speaker 2: obviously it's different. But if we didn't anthropomorphized animals, none
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Speaker 2: of us would have hats. Oh, that is true, and
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Speaker 2: I don't know why. It's like in Australia, but these
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Speaker 2: days in the US people care more about their dogs
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Speaker 2: than they do about their children.
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Speaker 1: That's the same. Well, I wouldn't say universally over here,
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Speaker 1: but dogs are where I live. I live near the beach,
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Speaker 1: and there are just every man and his dog has
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Speaker 1: got a dog.
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Speaker 2: It's just Extraordinis's not just that you have them, but
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Speaker 2: you buy gormy food for them by health insurance for them,
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Speaker 2: they're more expensive to maintain than children are. I mean,
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Speaker 2: it's really quite something. But all of that, and I
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Speaker 2: think I was just reading an article today about how
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Speaker 2: the evolution from wolves to dogs involve the appearance of
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Speaker 2: a muscle up I think above the eyebrow in the
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Speaker 2: dogs that wolves didn't have. And what that did was
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Speaker 2: it enabled facial expressions that human beings can easily anthropomorphiz. Yes, right,
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Speaker 2: so nobody looks at a wolf and thinks, oh, he's said,
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Speaker 2: But the expressiveness of a dog's face, which is all
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Speaker 2: about this one muscle, yes, invites us to anthropomorphiz and
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Speaker 2: that may have a lot to do with why we
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Speaker 2: have dogs of pets.
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Speaker 1: Obviously, you've done a lot of teaching and lecturing or
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Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe you haven't, but I assume over
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Speaker 1: the years you've done a lot of century. Yeah, okay,
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Speaker 1: so you're probably quite good at that. Well done. What
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Speaker 1: I want to know is when you were sharing similar
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Speaker 1: science with a non academic audience, how do you go
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Speaker 1: into that knowing? Okay, so I've got all this knowledge
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Speaker 1: and information and research at my metaphoric fingertips or prefrontal
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Speaker 1: core to hexall whatever, Right, how do I share what
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Speaker 1: I know in a way with this group who doesn't
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Speaker 1: speak the same language, but nonetheless they're still intelligent. What's yours?
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Speaker 2: That's very hard to do. And you know, people teaching
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Speaker 2: university where really the emphasis is and I'm teaching it's
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Speaker 2: on research, I think, don't trouble themselves with this so much.
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Speaker 2: And they spend most of their time with graduate students
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Speaker 2: who have already been socialized, so they know where these
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Speaker 2: people are. If you're teaching undergraduates, if you're teaching freshmen
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Speaker 2: every semester, it is the same question. What's the level
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Speaker 2: of approaching this that will, on the one hand, be
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Speaker 2: comprehensible to the students and on the other hand, be
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Speaker 2: just challenging enough that they want to know a little
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Speaker 2: bit more. And there's an idea in psychology. It's been studied.
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Speaker 2: It's quite interesting and I think important. It's called the
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Speaker 2: curse of knowledge, and what it refers to is once
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Speaker 2: we learn something, it's impossible to remember what it was
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Speaker 2: like not to know it right. Right, So if I
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Speaker 2: spend ten years studying something and now I'm talking to
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Speaker 2: an uninformed audience, I have to imagine myself ten years earlier.
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Speaker 2: How would I need to hear this material presented so
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Speaker 2: that it would make sense to me? And it's very
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Speaker 2: hard to erase what you know and put yourself back
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Speaker 2: in this state of innocence and hit the target right.
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Speaker 2: So you know, I didn't hit the target right. All
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Speaker 2: the time, I'm pretty good at it, and by now
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Speaker 2: I've done a lot of talking to non academic audiences
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Speaker 2: and I pay attention and I get better at it
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Speaker 2: when I miss the mark. Usually I miss the mark
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Speaker 2: by overshooting, which I think is the better kind of
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Speaker 2: mistake to make. I'd rather flatter my audience than insult them. Yes,
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Speaker 2: but I'm pretty good at reading the room and sort
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Speaker 2: of modifying on the fly if I think, if I
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Speaker 2: get the sense that I'm pitching this at the wrong level, yeah.
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Speaker 1: I think to be that social and situational awareness, and
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Speaker 1: you know, I'm heading like do they understand this language?
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Speaker 1: Am I building rapport and connection and trust?
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Speaker 2: But it's very hard you speak publicly. It's pretty hard
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Speaker 2: when you're talking to a couple of hundred people.
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Speaker 1: You know all the time. All the time, I have
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Speaker 1: this little almost like hack when I'm talking about, say, metapception,
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Speaker 1: trying to understand the you experience for the rest of
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Speaker 1: the world, Like what is it like being around Craig
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Speaker 1: for Barry? What is it like being around Craig for
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Speaker 1: the lady that makes my coffee in the morning, Like
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Speaker 1: that kind of bigger than me awareness. And one of
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Speaker 1: the things I do when I want to open this
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Speaker 1: kind of metaperception door is I say, put up your
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Speaker 1: hand if you've ever heard your voice on audio recording?
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Speaker 1: And everyone reluctantly puts up their hand, and I say, now,
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Speaker 1: how many of you think you sound absolutely terrible? And
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Speaker 1: every hand goes up, and I go, what the bad
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Speaker 1: news is? That's how you sound all the time? To ask, right,
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Speaker 1: you know, that whiny nasally voice that you hear on
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Speaker 1: that recording, that's what we get all the time. That's
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Speaker 1: so yeah, trying to get them to understand their version
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Speaker 1: of what is versus our version of what is you know?
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Speaker 1: And that you know that false consensus idea that people
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Speaker 1: everyone thinks like me like, but they don't. They don't,
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Speaker 1: which is why you can say the same thing to
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Speaker 1: five people. One gets hurt and sends an email to
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Speaker 1: the university. Someone else thinks it's hilarious, someone else has inspired,
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Speaker 1: someone else is confused, and whatever. You know, because it
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Speaker 1: ain't about what's coming out of your mouth. It is
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Speaker 1: a bit, but it's usually more about how that is
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Speaker 1: interpreted or understood or misunderstood by the recipient or the receiver.
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Speaker 2: I think we've gotten better about that in the last
15:51
Speaker 2: twenty years or so because of the efforts to make
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Speaker 2: the communities that we act with more diverse. Yeah, you know,
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Speaker 2: because there is a certain sense in which if all
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Speaker 2: you're doing is talking to people who are just like you,
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Speaker 2: assuming that they see the world the way you do
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Speaker 2: is probably not a bad assumption to make. But once
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Speaker 2: you start confronting people who come from different backgrounds and
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Speaker 2: have different expectations and different aspirations, it sort of forces
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Speaker 2: you to be more open to the possibility that they
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Speaker 2: don't see the world in a way that's remotely the
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Speaker 2: way you do, and to open your ears so you
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Speaker 2: can learn from them. I don't know what things are
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Speaker 2: like these days in Australia, but I think in the
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Speaker 2: US that window of openness has in the last decade
16:48
Speaker 2: really shrunk again. People don't want to be with people
16:54
Speaker 2: who are different from them, and they certainly don't want
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Speaker 2: to listen to people who's views are different from theirs.
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Speaker 2: So the openness to diversity has really been replaced by
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Speaker 2: kind of stay with your own kind attitude and and
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Speaker 2: I think we're all the worse off for it.
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Speaker 1: Yes, we're going into good territory. I love this. So
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Speaker 1: one of the things, you know what metaphoric echo chambers
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Speaker 1: or you know whatever, I call them, ideological cults. You know,
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Speaker 1: some people they just hang out with people who think
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Speaker 1: like them, believe like them, have the same operating systems, values, theology, philosophy,
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Speaker 1: whatever it is, and then anyone who doesn't belong in
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Speaker 1: our group is the enemy. They're bad, they're wrong, they're
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Speaker 1: like it's true.
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Speaker 2: This is true in Australia too, not just.
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Speaker 1: One hundred percent right. But at the same time, people
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Speaker 1: consider themselves to be objective and open mind. Don't like
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Speaker 1: there's this irony of you know, what's coming out of
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Speaker 1: their mouth versus how they actually live. And I'm not
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Speaker 1: trying to be insulting, but the problem is when, as
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Speaker 1: I say, you correct me if you need to add
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Speaker 1: to it. I think when you have a certain strongly
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Speaker 1: held view or belief that forms part of your identity. Now,
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Speaker 1: when anyone attacks that belief or that ideology or that
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Speaker 1: theology or philosophy, they're attacking you because you are that
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Speaker 1: that is you know, Oh tell me about you. I
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Speaker 1: am a Christian, I am a Vegan, I am you know, whatever,
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Speaker 1: whatever the group is. And so therefore, because you belong
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Speaker 1: to that group and you need to adhere and conform
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Speaker 1: and toe the line when anything that's contrary to what
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Speaker 1: you think, which is actually in your mind knowledge rather
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Speaker 1: than belief, right, because ah, I don't just think I'm right,
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Speaker 1: I know I'm right. Then very few people are willing
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Speaker 1: to say, look, that is a good point. I could
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Speaker 1: be wrong and to be able to, like, over my life,
19:12
Speaker 1: I grew up in a very Christian paradigm, right very
19:16
Speaker 1: and anyway, there's no major rebellion. But it's like over time,
19:20
Speaker 1: I went, well, that seems inconsistent, that kind of seems
19:23
Speaker 1: like bullshit, and that you know where you go, Oh,
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Speaker 1: maybe not everything I believe it is true. Maybe not
19:28
Speaker 1: everything I think about these people or whatever. But to
19:32
Speaker 1: actually truly be open minded to the point where perhaps
19:36
Speaker 1: you have to throw your identity under the bus somewhat,
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Speaker 1: that's real hard for people to do.
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Speaker 2: I agree with what you've said, but I want to
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Speaker 2: make two points that are related. One is a psychologist
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Speaker 2: named Lee Ross some years ago coined this freeze naive realism,
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Speaker 2: and what he was trying to capture is the belief
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Speaker 2: that almost all of us have that we see the
20:06
Speaker 2: world as it is, so that people who disagree with
20:11
Speaker 2: us must have a distorted picture. I'm objective, and anyone
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Speaker 2: who agrees with me perforce is also objective. People who
20:22
Speaker 2: disagree you know, the best you can say about them
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Speaker 2: is that they're mistaken and we don't realize that we
20:31
Speaker 2: have this asymmetry that only we see the world as
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Speaker 2: it truly is. But if you have that attitude, and
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Speaker 2: I think most of us do, you can see that
20:42
Speaker 2: that doesn't set you up for being open to other
20:45
Speaker 2: points of view. In fact, you may be open enough
20:48
Speaker 2: that you're willing to correct people for their mistakes, but
20:52
Speaker 2: the idea that you might be the one making a
20:54
Speaker 2: mistake is far and territory. So that's one point. The
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Speaker 2: second point I want to make has to do with identity.
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Speaker 2: Is it remains something of a mystery, which aspects of
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Speaker 2: what we believe and what we do and how we
21:11
Speaker 2: look become part of our identity and which don't. So
21:17
Speaker 2: you know, if you live in a completely homogeneous world
21:21
Speaker 2: of say Christians, then Christianity may not be part of
21:26
Speaker 2: your identity because it doesn't distinguish you from anyone you know,
21:31
Speaker 2: and it becomes a part of you of your identity
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Speaker 2: or might when there's diversity, Yes, and you know, I've
21:41
Speaker 2: done research on how when you give people too many
21:45
Speaker 2: options for trivial things or not so trivial things, it
21:51
Speaker 2: screws them up. It paralyzes them. They can't choose, and
21:54
Speaker 2: when they do choose, they're dissatisfied with what they've chosen
21:58
Speaker 2: because they think there's boundary, have been something better out
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Speaker 2: there that they missed. And in recent years, the work
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Speaker 2: I've done is about how choice is a reflection, when
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Speaker 2: choice is a reflection of identity. Yes, and the idea
22:16
Speaker 2: is simple. When the world offers you two kinds of genes,
22:22
Speaker 2: the genes you wear can't say much about who you
22:25
Speaker 2: are because there isn't much diversity. When the world offers
22:32
Speaker 2: you twenty thousand kinds of genes, well, now like it
22:36
Speaker 2: or not, the genes you wear do say something to
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Speaker 2: the world about who you are yes. And so in
22:44
Speaker 2: the face of incredible diversity, almost anything can become part
22:49
Speaker 2: of identity because it can differentiate you from other people.
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Speaker 2: And the unfortunate thing about that is that it makes
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Speaker 2: it raises the stakes for trivial decisions. Yes, you know
23:03
Speaker 2: it does it really matter what kind of genes you buy?
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Speaker 2: And it puts walls between people because any any restaurant
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Speaker 2: you go to is a statement about who you are
23:16
Speaker 2: and what you value. Yes, And you know, as Freud
23:21
Speaker 2: said supposedly said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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Speaker 2: Sometimes a restaurant is just a meal, and it doesn't
23:30
Speaker 2: have more significance than that. But if the world is
23:33
Speaker 2: telling us it does have more significance than that, Well,
23:36
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, we're going to care a lot
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Speaker 2: about where we eat, Yes, because we all care a
23:41
Speaker 2: lot about what our identity is, the identity that we
23:44
Speaker 2: present to the world. So I don't think it's automatic. Yes,
23:49
Speaker 2: that you know, your beliefs, religious or otherwise become a
23:55
Speaker 2: part of your identity. But in a diverse world, with
23:58
Speaker 2: almost everything a matter of choice, more and more of
24:02
Speaker 2: the decisions we make are reflections of who we are.
24:06
Speaker 2: And I think that's one reason why young people are
24:09
Speaker 2: having such a hard time because every decision they makes
24:13
Speaker 2: seems like a high stakes decision.
24:15
Speaker 1: Yes, I want to come back to decision making. But
24:19
Speaker 1: a few things that popped into my mind as you
24:21
Speaker 1: were talking. So when we talk about you know, whatever
24:29
Speaker 1: echo chambers, you know, thought cults, whatever, or people wanting
24:34
Speaker 1: to be right. Obviously I don't want to get in
24:39
Speaker 1: trouble from the science community of apologies. But scientists are humans,
24:44
Speaker 1: and scientists have emotions and egos, and they want to
24:48
Speaker 1: be right. They don't want to be wrong, and they
24:50
Speaker 1: definitely don't want to be wrong about something that they've
24:53
Speaker 1: been teaching and preaching for twenty years. Right, So you
24:58
Speaker 1: know that, well, this is the science. The science tells
25:02
Speaker 1: us this. Well, maybe maybe it's one hundred percent right,
25:06
Speaker 1: maybe it's not. It feels like in that environment and
25:11
Speaker 1: in that collective consciousness and mindset consciousness is the wrong word,
25:15
Speaker 1: mindset thinking that Yeah, it's very when people are on
25:23
Speaker 1: a particular path, with particular motivation and reasons and beliefs,
25:28
Speaker 1: it's very hard for us humans, even scientists, to be
25:31
Speaker 1: really objective and go, oh, I guess what totally got
25:34
Speaker 1: that wrong? I mean you never hear that totally got
25:37
Speaker 1: it wrong.
25:39
Speaker 2: You seldom hear that. My view of the history of science,
25:45
Speaker 2: and I'm no expert, is that science is one damn
25:50
Speaker 2: mistake after another, which is to say, at a moment
25:55
Speaker 2: in time, the scientists, the chemist, the physicists, what have
25:59
Speaker 2: you think? They have it right, yes, and they have
26:03
Speaker 2: some of it right, and they have some of it wrong.
26:05
Speaker 2: And other physicists discover what they have wrong, and they revise,
26:11
Speaker 2: often with a fair amount of tention, and it gets
26:15
Speaker 2: a little bit closer to being right, but it's still wrong.
26:19
Speaker 2: And so the history of science is a history of mistakes. Yes,
26:24
Speaker 2: it's good for scientists to cling tenaciously to their view
26:29
Speaker 2: of their field, not to give up at the first
26:32
Speaker 2: sign of an undesired result of an experiment, but not
26:38
Speaker 2: so tenaciously that they are impervious to evidence. Yes, and
26:43
Speaker 2: so vigorous defense of your position is a good thing,
26:48
Speaker 2: But defense against anything is not such a good thing.
26:53
Speaker 2: And the problem I think is when people like me
26:59
Speaker 2: try to bring our science to the public, the public
27:04
Speaker 2: doesn't understand that because a scientists said it doesn't make
27:09
Speaker 2: it right. Yeah, that is so, you know, if I'm
27:13
Speaker 2: on a show like this one. And you asked me
27:15
Speaker 2: a question, and the first thing I say is, oh,
27:18
Speaker 2: it's complicated. You've lost half the audience, so you have
27:24
Speaker 2: to pretend that it's simple. And when I say something
27:28
Speaker 2: without qualification to colleagues, they know that the qualifications are there.
27:33
Speaker 2: I don't need to say them. We all understand. But
27:36
Speaker 2: when you say it to an you know, an untutored audience,
27:40
Speaker 2: they don't know that the qualifications are there. And if
27:43
Speaker 2: you put the qualifications there, then they stop listening. So
27:48
Speaker 2: you really need to find a way to somehow communicate
27:54
Speaker 2: to the public at large the fallibility of science, and
27:59
Speaker 2: so we should simultaneously really respect it and also be
28:05
Speaker 2: really skeptical of what it's telling us. You have to
28:09
Speaker 2: hold these two contradictory ideas at the same time. And
28:13
Speaker 2: I think for the most part, the public has either
28:17
Speaker 2: decided to accept every swallow everything science says because it's
28:21
Speaker 2: science capital s or to reject it all because scientists
28:26
Speaker 2: make mistakes.
28:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I see.
28:30
Speaker 2: You know. Both of those are terrible stances to be
28:34
Speaker 2: taking in the world, and science has itself contributed to
28:38
Speaker 2: that polarization.
28:41
Speaker 1: Speaking of this, is there something that you got wrong?
28:47
Speaker 1: Is there something that you did a one idea on
28:49
Speaker 1: where you went. I think it's actually it's why.
28:54
Speaker 2: Well, there's a very big thing that I did at
28:57
Speaker 2: one ad on and it happened early in my career
29:02
Speaker 2: because I spent a lot of time talking to philosophers
29:06
Speaker 2: I was doing research on animal learning. I don't know
29:12
Speaker 2: if your audience will even know this name anymore, but
29:15
Speaker 2: the person whose work I was in the tradition of
29:19
Speaker 2: is a guy named BF Skinner, who was at the
29:22
Speaker 2: time the most probably the most famous living psychologist, and
29:27
Speaker 2: he is what it's called a behaviorist. If you want
29:31
Speaker 2: to understand organisms, you need to understand what determines their behavior,
29:38
Speaker 2: and from his view, it was rewards and punishments that
29:41
Speaker 2: could control behavior. So that's the framework within which he operated,
29:46
Speaker 2: and the work I was doing was focused on pointing
29:50
Speaker 2: out the limitations of these of this approach. So it
29:55
Speaker 2: was meant to be critical of the enterprise at a
29:58
Speaker 2: time when the enterprise died dominated academic psychology. But I
30:04
Speaker 2: thought that what I was trying to do is correct
30:09
Speaker 2: a mistake that Skinnarians were making with a truer depiction
30:17
Speaker 2: of what controls behavior. And these discussions I had with philosophers,
30:22
Speaker 2: I'd say, no, no, there isn't a correct description. What
30:30
Speaker 2: influences behavior is something that changes with history, with social institutions,
30:36
Speaker 2: with social structures. So you can create an environment in
30:41
Speaker 2: which Skinner's view is true, but it's always true. It
30:45
Speaker 2: means it's true in a particular environment, say an environment
30:49
Speaker 2: where everybody goes to work in a factory every day,
30:52
Speaker 2: doing the same thing over and over again and getting
30:55
Speaker 2: paid a wage, and you ask, well, why is this
30:57
Speaker 2: person working? And the answer is we all these works
31:00
Speaker 2: for the reward. Why else, why does anyone work? But
31:04
Speaker 2: in a different environment, that would not be an adequate explanation.
31:09
Speaker 2: And so the idea behind this is that the things
31:12
Speaker 2: we regard as true change as history changes, History changes people,
31:20
Speaker 2: and the whole enterprise of psychology is to find the
31:23
Speaker 2: things about people that don't change. You know, the universal
31:29
Speaker 2: truths about human beings in human nature, Well, maybe the
31:33
Speaker 2: most universal truth about human nature is that there is
31:37
Speaker 2: no universal truth about human nature. And when this idea
31:43
Speaker 2: was presented to me, I thought the person talking to
31:46
Speaker 2: me it was just an outer space. I couldn't imagine
31:50
Speaker 2: what he was talking about. I was thoroughly indoctrinated with
31:54
Speaker 2: a scientific view and slowly have a couple of years
32:00
Speaker 2: of heated conversation. The lightbel went on. I saw what
32:05
Speaker 2: he was talking about. Yes, I saw that. I actually
32:09
Speaker 2: thought what he was saying was true, and it completely
32:13
Speaker 2: changed everything I did from that point on.
32:16
Speaker 1: Wow. Good.
32:17
Speaker 2: So that was a pretty big one eighty.
32:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a yeah. Yeah, I had a much smaller
32:23
Speaker 1: one eighty in terms of impact and importance. But back
32:29
Speaker 1: in the day, so before my current research and what
32:33
Speaker 1: I'm doing now, and I used to I set up
32:36
Speaker 1: the first personal training center in Australia, really yeah, and
32:40
Speaker 1: then the second, and I ended up with four. But
32:45
Speaker 1: when I started, there was no there was no you know,
32:50
Speaker 1: there was no course. So this is in the late eighties,
32:54
Speaker 1: so there was no no accreditation, no industry, no regulation,
32:59
Speaker 1: no insurance. It had already taken off in the States
33:02
Speaker 1: were probably a few years behind. But so yeah, I
33:05
Speaker 1: was very much there. So had the first center. People
33:08
Speaker 1: didn't know what a dah blah blah blah. But one
33:11
Speaker 1: of the things that I used to teach obviously I'm
33:15
Speaker 1: an excise physiologist firstly, or an excise scientist more accurately,
33:19
Speaker 1: but but you would talk about lifestyle and sleep and
33:23
Speaker 1: food and booze and drugs and you know, socializing. Of course,
33:29
Speaker 1: I would talk about exercise and progressive overloading programming and
33:33
Speaker 1: all of these things that you do. But when I
33:36
Speaker 1: would talk about food, like, the science of the time
33:39
Speaker 1: was the food pyramid, right, that was that was the
33:43
Speaker 1: best evidence, you know, that was rock solid, that was irrefutable.
33:47
Speaker 1: Not But so I taught essentially a version of the
33:51
Speaker 1: food pyramid for twenty years and then one day, not
33:54
Speaker 1: really but almost one day, I went, hey, everybody, I've
33:59
Speaker 1: got some new I've got some new information and research.
34:03
Speaker 1: I got it wrong. I got it wrong quite a bit.
34:06
Speaker 1: So for me having to I mean, you can't undo that,
34:10
Speaker 1: but just going all right, I know better now, I'll
34:12
Speaker 1: do better, I'll teach better, I'll inform better. But that
34:16
Speaker 1: that was big for me because it doesn't you know,
34:19
Speaker 1: whatever way I looked at, you know, the the updated research,
34:24
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't make it conform to my model.
34:29
Speaker 1: So I just add to what you know, I've been wrong.
34:31
Speaker 1: But it's I think that if we're like when I
34:36
Speaker 1: when I'm talking to an audience like a corporate audience
34:40
Speaker 1: or a team of athletes or a team of whatever,
34:43
Speaker 1: school teachers, men, women on a construction site. And I'm
34:47
Speaker 1: about to share whatever I'm going to share, I'm gonna
34:50
Speaker 1: I don't go this as the science I go. I'm
34:52
Speaker 1: going to I'm going to talk to you about a
34:54
Speaker 1: range of things based on my study in research, my stories,
34:58
Speaker 1: my interactions, my experienperiences, my results. Some of it I'm
35:03
Speaker 1: going to get wrong because I'm always finding out down
35:05
Speaker 1: the track that I was wrong, you know, And so
35:08
Speaker 1: rather than just believe me, I want you to consider
35:10
Speaker 1: me and then with applying your own intelligence, see whether
35:15
Speaker 1: or not this might be something that is a fit
35:17
Speaker 1: for you or you might want to explore further. But
35:22
Speaker 1: that being able to for me, that that creates a
35:27
Speaker 1: level of freedom. I'm not avoiding anything, but I'm just saying, look,
35:32
Speaker 1: this is what I think and why these are my experiences,
35:36
Speaker 1: this is what I've seen. Like I've personally done over
35:39
Speaker 1: sixty thousand personal training sessions. That's a lot of ours
35:44
Speaker 1: and a lot of interactions with thousands of people who
35:48
Speaker 1: want to create change. They're there for different reasons, but
35:51
Speaker 1: universally they're there because they want to be different. So
35:54
Speaker 1: the psychology is how do we create different and how
35:57
Speaker 1: do we sustain different? And what is the different that
36:00
Speaker 1: you want? And then even within that, the journey to
36:05
Speaker 1: that outcome, even for people with the same goals, will
36:08
Speaker 1: be different. It's not like there's a five step plan
36:12
Speaker 1: to going from the body and lifestyle and health and fitness.
36:15
Speaker 1: You have to what you want because that will vary
36:19
Speaker 1: based on a range of things for the individual. So
36:23
Speaker 1: that Yeah, I just think this this ability or willingness
36:28
Speaker 1: to go this is what I think and believe. These
36:30
Speaker 1: are the reasons why could be wrong.
36:34
Speaker 2: You know, I wrote a book about fifteen years ago
36:39
Speaker 2: with another colleague who was not a psychologist, called Practical Wisdom.
36:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty ten. I love it, thank you.
36:50
Speaker 2: And you know, the subtitle is the right Way to
36:53
Speaker 2: do the right thing. Yeah. And the arnument in the
36:56
Speaker 2: book is that we have come to believe that the
37:00
Speaker 2: way to get our institutions working right, medicine, law, education,
37:06
Speaker 2: you name it is to come up with the right
37:09
Speaker 2: set of rules and then insist that everyone follow them.
37:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:16
Speaker 2: And you know, you start out and you set some
37:18
Speaker 2: rules up and you see that they don't work, so
37:21
Speaker 2: you modify the rules and they work. For a while,
37:24
Speaker 2: and then you have to modify them again. But the
37:27
Speaker 2: rules keep getting better and better and more and more
37:30
Speaker 2: of them, and the performance improves. And the argument in
37:35
Speaker 2: the book is that rules only take you so far. Yes,
37:39
Speaker 2: because how you apply a rule, and whether to apply
37:45
Speaker 2: a room and when to apply a rule depends on
37:49
Speaker 2: the people you're dealing with in the situation they're in,
37:53
Speaker 2: and so, as a personal trainer, even if you have
37:57
Speaker 2: the food pyramid right, that doesn't answer the question why
38:01
Speaker 2: do I tell this person who's in front of me?
38:05
Speaker 2: Is this person prepared to hear what I think I
38:10
Speaker 2: would say if to somebody who was in a different
38:16
Speaker 2: position in life, you know, give up drinking? Well, this
38:21
Speaker 2: person is in the pub for two pints or three
38:25
Speaker 2: pints five times a week. Give up drinking is a
38:28
Speaker 2: non starter. The question is what can you say? What
38:33
Speaker 2: should you say? How do you bring people along? And
38:38
Speaker 2: that is an individual decision. The problem with that view,
38:41
Speaker 2: of course, is that science is looking for general principles. Yes,
38:46
Speaker 2: and if you end up saying, well, you ad their
38:50
Speaker 2: general principles are good guidelines. But where the rubber needs
38:55
Speaker 2: meets the road, you need to adapt these general principles
38:58
Speaker 2: so that they fit the life of the person you're
39:02
Speaker 2: working with. And the problem is, the more we rely
39:06
Speaker 2: on rules, the less opportunity we have to exercise judgment,
39:11
Speaker 2: find out that our judgment was bad, and get better.
39:16
Speaker 2: So I think it's quite important for you to take
39:19
Speaker 2: seriously your personal experience with the thousands of people you've trained,
39:26
Speaker 2: because you can't be a good trainer unless you are
39:29
Speaker 2: training them one person at a time.
39:33
Speaker 1: One of the first lessons I learned profit and you'll
39:35
Speaker 1: be amused by this. So when you start working in
39:38
Speaker 1: the fitness industry, most people you know, you've got you know.
39:43
Speaker 1: You think it's about anatomy and physiology and muscles and
39:46
Speaker 1: tendons and joints and movements and energy systems and all
39:50
Speaker 1: the things, right, and so you become somewhat familiar and
39:54
Speaker 1: fluent in this space. And then but I learned, I
39:59
Speaker 1: was going to say quickly, probably took a year or two,
40:02
Speaker 1: but I learned reasonably quickly that how much I know
40:08
Speaker 1: about bodies is not nearly as important as how well
40:12
Speaker 1: I understand the human in the body right, Because my
40:16
Speaker 1: knowledge of anatomy and physiology and movements and all of
40:18
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know, here's how to train this body
40:22
Speaker 1: with the reasonable level of accuracy.
40:25
Speaker 2: Right.
40:26
Speaker 1: Well, that that was cool, but that was five percent
40:28
Speaker 1: of it. Ninety five percent was how do I inspire
40:32
Speaker 1: and teach and how can I help the person create
40:38
Speaker 1: the habits, the lifestyle, the behaviors, the continuity to do
40:42
Speaker 1: the work, to find the solution, not the problem to
40:45
Speaker 1: you know. To then so a year from now, we've
40:48
Speaker 1: actually created a real world result and you look, feel
40:51
Speaker 1: and function differently. Bibitty bobbity boo. Right, and then somebody
40:56
Speaker 1: else You'll give all the same resources and time and
40:59
Speaker 1: energy and information and they stop three weeks later. So
41:04
Speaker 1: that kind of Yes, I know a lot about exercise programming,
41:10
Speaker 1: but that doesn't equate to I'm getting great results with
41:13
Speaker 1: clients and all.
41:14
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, that's exactly right. And I think that
41:18
Speaker 2: people who approach whatever it is they're doing with their
41:22
Speaker 2: minds open to that possibility, learn that leapon. Yes, but
41:28
Speaker 2: you have to be open to the possibility. You have
41:31
Speaker 2: to be open to the possibility that there is no
41:35
Speaker 2: one size fits all approach to pretty much anything. Yes,
41:42
Speaker 2: no matter how well we understand the domain, you may
41:45
Speaker 2: know exactly what the right thing a course of training
41:51
Speaker 2: is for the abstract person. And then the question is, well,
41:56
Speaker 2: is this person who's just come in for a session
41:59
Speaker 2: one of those abstract people? No, he's not, Yes, how
42:05
Speaker 2: do I work around there's various quirks and imperfections and
42:10
Speaker 2: that he doesn't aspire to what I hope he will
42:13
Speaker 2: eventually aspire to. You know.
42:17
Speaker 1: An interesting story is that over the years I employed
42:21
Speaker 1: with in my gyms. It was all appointment based, so
42:24
Speaker 1: they weren't a normal commercial, walking off the street gym,
42:27
Speaker 1: get a membership to a workout. It was a consultancy
42:30
Speaker 1: but big, like one of my gyms was ten thousand
42:33
Speaker 1: square feet, so everybody would come by appointment, and just
42:40
Speaker 1: the willingness for people to be able to fully commit
42:48
Speaker 1: and to go all right, this is a you know,
42:50
Speaker 1: and to not rely on motivation like that state of inspiration.
42:55
Speaker 1: My question was always how do I stay productive and
42:58
Speaker 1: proactive and effect beyond the motivation? And also I had
43:04
Speaker 1: this experience which I blanked on for a minute, but
43:06
Speaker 1: it's come back to me is the first time I
43:09
Speaker 1: employed I don't want to say who, but I started
43:13
Speaker 1: to employ a few trainers just who came in, who
43:17
Speaker 1: had you know, like postgraduate degrees, master's PhDs, and like
43:22
Speaker 1: very very well qualified in the exercise physiology space. Some
43:27
Speaker 1: of them were pretty good, but some of them were
43:29
Speaker 1: terrible trainers despite their vast knowledge, because they couldn't have
43:34
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone and because they couldn't understand human
43:38
Speaker 1: dynamics or read the room or And I'm like, wow,
43:41
Speaker 1: We've got this person with all this knowledge about how
43:44
Speaker 1: to change and transform and body. But at the same time,
43:49
Speaker 1: and I remember one of my guys was a PhD.
43:52
Speaker 1: And he kept he kept turning over clients like that,
43:58
Speaker 1: stayed maybe two sessions and go where most of my
44:00
Speaker 1: trainers they would hold on to clients for like two
44:04
Speaker 1: or three days a week for a year or more.
44:07
Speaker 1: And I said, I had to go up and say
44:10
Speaker 1: to him, or we had a meeting, and I said, so,
44:13
Speaker 1: when Diane comes in, ask her how a weekend was,
44:18
Speaker 1: ask her how her kid went at soccer, ask her
44:22
Speaker 1: what she ate for dinner on Saturday night at that party,
44:26
Speaker 1: you know, not in an accusatory way, and then ask
44:30
Speaker 1: her how her energy is today and ask her about it.
44:33
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, just talk to her, build rapport, connection,
44:36
Speaker 1: trust and when you're doing that, she's on the exercise
44:39
Speaker 1: bike warming up. You don't have to talk about the
44:43
Speaker 1: physiology of the human system every time she walks in
44:46
Speaker 1: the gym. It's like, just build a relationship. It's still
44:50
Speaker 1: a professional relationship, but it's friendly and you don't need
44:54
Speaker 1: to over explain the science at all, because that's not
44:58
Speaker 1: building the kind of connect you want. But literally to
45:02
Speaker 1: instruct him on how to just have good conversations that
45:05
Speaker 1: weren't about training or science or anything. And were you successful, Yeah,
45:11
Speaker 1: with some of them, with some of them, But that
45:15
Speaker 1: this is to me an example, no disrespect because as
45:18
Speaker 1: we said at the start of the show early on,
45:20
Speaker 1: you know, intelligence as a spectrum, and some people's IQ
45:23
Speaker 1: is through the roof and their ability to do research
45:25
Speaker 1: and write papers and great, But then you put them
45:28
Speaker 1: in you know, you hand them a crying baby and
45:31
Speaker 1: they don't know what to do, you know, or you
45:34
Speaker 1: throw them a ball and it hits them in the face.
45:36
Speaker 1: And that's not bad, that's not an insult. It's just
45:39
Speaker 1: that in certain contexts they're not nearly as capable are
45:44
Speaker 1: as they are in an academic setting.
45:46
Speaker 2: Patterns, and you know what, I think people underappreciate in
45:53
Speaker 2: this domain of training, personal training and in many others,
45:59
Speaker 2: is that, Yeah, your clients or your patients want to
46:05
Speaker 2: know that you know your shit. Yeah, But what's even
46:10
Speaker 2: more important is that they want to know that what
46:15
Speaker 2: you care about is what's best for me. You are
46:21
Speaker 2: there to help me achieve whatever goals I'm there to
46:26
Speaker 2: try to achieve. And the way you build that attitude
46:31
Speaker 2: of caring is not by showing me how much you know.
46:36
Speaker 2: It's by showing me how much you care. So true,
46:40
Speaker 2: and that you know. The kinds of things you do
46:43
Speaker 2: to indicate that you care are completely different from you know,
46:48
Speaker 2: kinds of things you do to show how much you know.
46:50
Speaker 2: You could be talking to a blank screen and show
46:54
Speaker 2: how much you know. But you know what, why should
46:58
Speaker 2: I trust that you're going to make suggestions to me
47:02
Speaker 2: that serve me, yes, rather than some ideal you have
47:07
Speaker 2: of how people should exercise their bodies and build up
47:12
Speaker 2: their core strengths and so on. And so this ethic
47:18
Speaker 2: of care and the demonstration of care is what I
47:22
Speaker 2: think people long for, and I think that may help
47:26
Speaker 2: explain why people are being so attracted to AI agents
47:35
Speaker 2: because one of the things these agents have been programmed
47:39
Speaker 2: to do. Is where their hearts on their sleeves and
47:44
Speaker 2: let you know with every interaction how much they care,
47:48
Speaker 2: you know, And you know, in a world where everyone
47:51
Speaker 2: talks about how lonely they are, finding anything that seems
47:55
Speaker 2: to care is the critical thing. And you know, even
48:00
Speaker 2: if it doesn't have a pulse, it can it can
48:03
Speaker 2: say things that makes me think it really has my
48:06
Speaker 2: welfare and heart. And I don't feel that way when
48:09
Speaker 2: I go into the stores at the mall. And I
48:12
Speaker 2: don't feel that way when I go into the doctor's
48:15
Speaker 2: office and have a fifteen minute visit, and I don't
48:18
Speaker 2: feel that way when I go to the lawyer to
48:21
Speaker 2: have a will drawn up. They don't care about me.
48:24
Speaker 2: I'm just an interchangeable customer.
48:28
Speaker 1: You're you're just a pathway to money.
48:30
Speaker 2: I'm a pathway to money, or a pathway to status,
48:34
Speaker 2: or pathway to something. But I you know, I'm an
48:38
Speaker 2: interchangeable part. And somehow these AI agents have the bells
48:46
Speaker 2: and whistles to suggest to a lot of people that
48:50
Speaker 2: their interactions with AI, in the interactions with AI, AI
48:56
Speaker 2: is not treating them as an anonymous, interchangeable part. That
49:01
Speaker 2: there's something about their personal identity and their personal concerns
49:06
Speaker 2: that somehow shapes the answers that they get when they
49:09
Speaker 2: ask the AI agent questions. And I feel that has
49:14
Speaker 2: a big impact on why people are finding it so
49:18
Speaker 2: attractive to interact with AI agents.
49:23
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that while we know it's not
49:25
Speaker 1: a person, we know it doesn't have a heart or
49:27
Speaker 1: a heartbeat, we know it can't feel, we know all
49:30
Speaker 1: that stuff, but at the same time, as an experience
49:35
Speaker 1: for the user, when you build in inverted coom as
49:38
Speaker 1: a relationship and a rapport and it you know, when
49:41
Speaker 1: I use chat JPT, it literally says to me, Hi, Craig,
49:45
Speaker 1: what's up? You know, and it's like, oh, yeah, this
49:49
Speaker 1: is similar to the work that you did with this
49:50
Speaker 1: and that you know, what I think would be great
49:53
Speaker 1: right now is if you just dtata and it comes
49:55
Speaker 1: up with good ideas and I'm thinking it all the time,
49:58
Speaker 1: you know, I know, it's like I say thanks and
50:01
Speaker 1: would you mind? You know, it's like I'm well aware
50:05
Speaker 1: that it isn't but I talk to it in a
50:08
Speaker 1: way that is and that I think for those like
50:11
Speaker 1: in Australia, there's quite a lot of people who live
50:13
Speaker 1: rurally and are isolated and live for one of better
50:17
Speaker 1: terms in the middle of nowhere. And so you know,
50:21
Speaker 1: there's been a big upsurge in people in rural areas
50:25
Speaker 1: of Australia using AI a lot, and not always with
50:31
Speaker 1: a good outcome. I realize we've got not long to go.
50:33
Speaker 1: I want to quickly talk to you about So your
50:36
Speaker 1: latest book is called Ethics and the Art of Decision Making.
50:39
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
50:40
Speaker 2: No? No, the latest book is called Choose Wisely, Ethics
50:45
Speaker 2: on the Art of Decision Making.
50:47
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, I got the second bit, choose wise I
50:49
Speaker 1: think the second yes, choose wisely? Okay, what are we
50:56
Speaker 1: good or bad decision makers? In general? And I know
51:00
Speaker 1: that's just that's probably a three hour podcast. But are
51:04
Speaker 1: we emotional? Are we strategic? Are we rational? Does it
51:08
Speaker 1: very personal? Person? Are we mostly emotionally intuitive? Instinctive? Tell
51:12
Speaker 1: us about it a little bit.
51:14
Speaker 2: Okay, well, you're going to love my answer. The answer
51:17
Speaker 2: to your question is yes.
51:20
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say that.
51:24
Speaker 2: We are all of those things. And it looks as
51:31
Speaker 2: though we've got one set of decision making processes that
51:34
Speaker 2: acts very quickly using rules of thumb. Yes, and is
51:40
Speaker 2: right most of the time, but can be seriously wrong
51:44
Speaker 2: some of the time. And then there's this other system
51:48
Speaker 2: for decision making that uses the formal tools that logic
51:54
Speaker 2: and mathematics and probability theory have given us for calculating
52:00
Speaker 2: what's the best option to choose now, And we tend
52:04
Speaker 2: not to use that because it's effortful, it's time consuming,
52:10
Speaker 2: and because this other system is giving us answers before
52:14
Speaker 2: we've even asked questions.
52:17
Speaker 1: Yes.
52:17
Speaker 2: So, the Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman is most
52:22
Speaker 2: associated with this view, and his book Thinking Fast and
52:26
Speaker 2: Slow describes his own and other people's research on it.
52:31
Speaker 2: So that's why I gave you the facetious answer. Yes,
52:35
Speaker 2: we do both of these things, and some of us
52:41
Speaker 2: are more prone to making consequential errors than others of us.
52:49
Speaker 2: But the point of the new book, Choose Wisely is
52:54
Speaker 2: to suggest that what we think it means to be
52:57
Speaker 2: a rational decision maker is itself problematic. We have adopted
53:04
Speaker 2: the economist view of what it means to be rational,
53:08
Speaker 2: and that view is that for any decision, you ask
53:13
Speaker 2: how good will it be and how likely is it
53:16
Speaker 2: to be that good, and then you multiply the value
53:20
Speaker 2: how good will it be by the probability? And you
53:25
Speaker 2: do that for every option, and you choose the one
53:27
Speaker 2: that has the highest value. So it treats our decision
53:31
Speaker 2: making in life as if we're deciding what bets to
53:34
Speaker 2: make in a gambling casino. We are in a gambling casino.
53:39
Speaker 2: The only thing that matters really is how much can
53:42
Speaker 2: I win? And what are the odds? But that's not
53:44
Speaker 2: true of life. Yes, and so we have accepted a
53:51
Speaker 2: very very pinched and narrow view of what rationality is.
53:57
Speaker 2: And when we talk about how people deviate from that,
54:01
Speaker 2: what they're deviating from is not where they should be.
54:06
Speaker 2: And this is related to what we were talking about
54:08
Speaker 2: a few minutes ago regarding wisdom. It takes judgment to
54:13
Speaker 2: know how to evaluate different situations, how to compare them
54:18
Speaker 2: to one another. Should I spend this evening doing more
54:22
Speaker 2: work or should I spend time with some close friends?
54:26
Speaker 2: How do you compare those two? What's the underlying dimension
54:30
Speaker 2: that enables you to compare an evening spent with close
54:33
Speaker 2: friends to preparing the next public talk you give. Yes,
54:40
Speaker 2: they have virtually nothing in common. You will eventually decide,
54:44
Speaker 2: and you'll decide by sort of weighing in an informal
54:48
Speaker 2: way what's good and what's not so good about each
54:51
Speaker 2: of those alternatives. But the notion that you can be
54:54
Speaker 2: formulaic about it is ludicrous. Yes, And what we suggest
55:00
Speaker 2: in this book is that most of the decisions we
55:03
Speaker 2: make every day are like that.
55:07
Speaker 1: So I know, you've got to go soon, Have you
55:10
Speaker 1: got five more minutes or no? Like I just think
55:14
Speaker 1: about my listeners. I apologize for what I'm about to
55:17
Speaker 1: say because I've said it a few times, but I
55:20
Speaker 1: do someone I want, coaching, mentoring, whatever you call it.
55:23
Speaker 1: And many times I've sat down with somebody who's I
55:26
Speaker 1: don't know, forty five, fifty to fifty five, and we'll
55:30
Speaker 1: be talking about their life, their job, where they're at,
55:32
Speaker 1: you know, finances, physical health, just the whole kind of
55:35
Speaker 1: human experience, just in general terms. Where you're at, where
55:39
Speaker 1: you want to be, you know where you were, where
55:41
Speaker 1: you want to be in the future, you know all
55:43
Speaker 1: that stuff. And they'll say to me, this wasn't my plan.
55:48
Speaker 1: And so they're referring to where they're at in their
55:51
Speaker 1: life now on a range of levels, this wasn't my plan.
55:55
Speaker 1: And I say, can I see a copy of the plan,
55:58
Speaker 1: and they go, what what the plan? Can I see it?
56:05
Speaker 1: There's no plan, I go, you don't have a plan.
56:08
Speaker 1: You just have an idea of how you think things
56:10
Speaker 1: will end up. Like, there's no plan, there's no time,
56:13
Speaker 1: there's timeline, there's no strategy, there's no accountability process, there's
56:17
Speaker 1: no method, there's no protocol. You're just getting up and
56:20
Speaker 1: doing what you did yesterday, even though it wasn't particularly
56:23
Speaker 1: effective yesterday. But life happens despite you. And it's like
56:27
Speaker 1: each morning you get up and step into the energy
56:30
Speaker 1: and flow of your current whatever, and it's like I
56:35
Speaker 1: feel like, and my observation is with many people, including myself,
56:41
Speaker 1: at times, that we're almost like an unconscious participant in
56:47
Speaker 1: this story that's evolving. I'm not consciously and critically making
56:53
Speaker 1: decisions that will impact my future and then operationalizing those
56:58
Speaker 1: decisions into some kind kind of a method or protocol
57:02
Speaker 1: or strategy so that in the five years where I
57:06
Speaker 1: want to be in five years with its physically, financially, practically,
57:09
Speaker 1: relationally whatever. I'm there now because I had a thought,
57:14
Speaker 1: I had an idea my life wasn't working in inverted commas.
57:17
Speaker 1: I made this decision, I created this plan. I took
57:20
Speaker 1: this action, I persevered, and now I've created this result.
57:24
Speaker 1: I feel like with a lot of people, decisions are
57:27
Speaker 1: really just incidental, little day to day almost well.
57:32
Speaker 2: Part of the reason that frequential I think you're right,
57:35
Speaker 2: and part of the reason that we wrote the book
57:38
Speaker 2: is that what we think is that people have limited bandwidth,
57:45
Speaker 2: and if they have this idea that they can make
57:49
Speaker 2: the small decisions by doing these technical calculations, they won't
57:55
Speaker 2: have the bandwidth to think about the big decisions and
57:59
Speaker 2: impose the same criteria of specificity and rigor for the
58:04
Speaker 2: big decisions that they would if they were deciding what
58:08
Speaker 2: bet to make in a casino. Then they'll miss the
58:11
Speaker 2: most important things that they need to be thinking about.
58:14
Speaker 2: So I think you're right that people don't think about
58:17
Speaker 2: the big things enough, and I think the thing to
58:21
Speaker 2: do is encourage people to think about the big things
58:24
Speaker 2: by making it apparent to them that they're wasting in
58:29
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of time and effort trying to micro
58:33
Speaker 2: manage the little things. Yes, so I think you know
58:38
Speaker 2: you're right. We don't have a plan. We have some
58:40
Speaker 2: vague idea of what where we want to be in
58:43
Speaker 2: twenty years. You know, they're a handful of people who
58:46
Speaker 2: have a step by step plan, but mostly we don't.
58:51
Speaker 2: And I don't want to be in jail. You know,
58:53
Speaker 2: anything is better than that, So let me stay out
58:55
Speaker 2: of jail for the next twenty years. Yeah, yeah, that's
58:58
Speaker 2: a good strategy. So, but I think it's important for
59:03
Speaker 2: being for people to be more reflective than most of
59:07
Speaker 2: us are about the big things without thinking that you
59:12
Speaker 2: can thereby set a course that you can move smoothly
59:18
Speaker 2: through to reach your objective. You know, the world doesn't
59:23
Speaker 2: cooperate in this way, but it's better to have to
59:26
Speaker 2: think about where you want to be in twenty years
59:29
Speaker 2: than not think about it.
59:30
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I do this exercise which is almost like
59:36
Speaker 1: a like a stock take profit where I'll sit with
59:41
Speaker 1: somebody and I'll go, all right, let's talk about all
59:43
Speaker 1: the bits of your life. Let's talk about relationships, Korea, money,
59:49
Speaker 1: emotional states, you know whatever, like fitness, strength, you know,
59:55
Speaker 1: it could be really you know, posture, whatever, it could
59:58
Speaker 1: be anything. And then I go we go through this
1:00:02
Speaker 1: thing where quite analytically and try to make it not
1:00:06
Speaker 1: too emotional. So what's going great in your life and
1:00:09
Speaker 1: what's not like what's working, what's not working? Okay, you
1:00:13
Speaker 1: say that's not working? What does that mean? How is
1:00:15
Speaker 1: it not working? What would you need to do for
1:00:18
Speaker 1: it to work? So rather than there being these vague,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: obscure kind of I want to do that, in fact,
1:00:25
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about, well, right now, what's going
1:00:28
Speaker 1: on with you? So we can address the right now
1:00:31
Speaker 1: stuff and we can move forward. It's like we're trying
1:00:34
Speaker 1: to create a medicine that's specific to your DNA and
1:00:37
Speaker 1: your issues. Right We're trying to find that you solution.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: And it's a really good exercise in self awareness. Like
1:00:49
Speaker 1: even one question I asked people, how do you currently
1:00:52
Speaker 1: self sabotage? What are you doing that is stopping you
1:00:57
Speaker 1: from exploring your potential or possibilities? Or people like, oh
1:01:01
Speaker 1: I do this, well, let's create a strategy around not
1:01:04
Speaker 1: doing that. You know it doesn't. That's that kind of
1:01:08
Speaker 1: bringing it back to use a friendly kind of science
1:01:11
Speaker 1: where you know that people go, oh, yeah, I understand that,
1:01:15
Speaker 1: and I don't say, look, what's two things we can
1:01:18
Speaker 1: do this week? What's two things? Let's do those and
1:01:21
Speaker 1: then let's regroup and then let's build on it. You know,
1:01:24
Speaker 1: rather than here's this overwhelm of things you've got to
1:01:28
Speaker 1: consider to change your life in the next five years
1:01:31
Speaker 1: and be two point oh you you know it doesn't
1:01:35
Speaker 1: You've got to be the whole.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: The whole I would think is that when you do this,
1:01:42
Speaker 2: you will be empowering people so that they won't keep
1:01:46
Speaker 2: needing you to ask these questions. They will eventually be
1:01:50
Speaker 2: asking themselves these questions and without expecting to find a
1:01:56
Speaker 2: definite answer, but at least thinking about the big things,
1:02:01
Speaker 2: the obstacles, the aspirations, and then what little things they
1:02:07
Speaker 2: can do to move themselves a little bit closer to those.
1:02:11
Speaker 2: So ideally, you know, it's that all parable about. Give
1:02:16
Speaker 2: a man fish, or you can teach them how to fish. Ideally,
1:02:20
Speaker 2: you're teaching them how to fish so that when their
1:02:24
Speaker 2: time with you is over, they have a set of
1:02:27
Speaker 2: skills and an orientation to living the rest of their
1:02:31
Speaker 2: lives that will make their lives go better.
1:02:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautifully put Hi, I so appreciate your time. Miss
1:02:41
Speaker 1: Barry's lightest book is called Choose Wisely subtitle Ethics and
1:02:46
Speaker 1: the Out of Decision Making that was released last year.
1:02:49
Speaker 1: I think I get ten copies of that. Everybody give
1:02:56
Speaker 1: not and why? And rad one? How do people I
1:02:59
Speaker 1: don't know you? Are you on any are you? Do
1:03:02
Speaker 1: you have a website? Can people contact you? Or where
1:03:05
Speaker 1: can people go to see a lot of them?
1:03:07
Speaker 2: All of my books are on Amazon, and I don't
1:03:11
Speaker 2: have a website.
1:03:14
Speaker 1: Good idea.
1:03:15
Speaker 2: I'm an old fashioned guy.
1:03:18
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, appreciate you.
1:03:20
Speaker 2: They if people tape my name into Google, they will
1:03:23
Speaker 2: get an obscenely long list of things about me that
1:03:27
Speaker 2: is true.
1:03:28
Speaker 1: I did that and what he says is true. Everyone,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: all right, we'll call it quits, but you and I
1:03:35
Speaker 1: will say goodbye affair. But barry for the minute. I
1:03:38
Speaker 1: really loved meeting you and chatting with you and learning
1:03:43
Speaker 1: from you, so thanks so much.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: It was really a pleasure, great conversation.