Here's a brief post from the LA Times that sums up about 3 years of reading on my part. You might like it:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-sapolsky-how-we-decide-how-to-vote-20160403-story.html
Our brain is a wonderful mechanism, amazing tool. It does MOST of its work without our even being aware of it. It is a beautiful pattern recognition beast - able to read a facial expression, a stance, a move, and register a decision on our behalf without us even being aware of it. And then we spend some actual "thinking" time trying to justify what our brain has already decided. Amazing.
That is also pretty scary when you come to economics or politics. Millions of years of evolution gave us rapid responses to survive in the wild - but they don't work so well in the "modern era". We are pulled around by these gut calls, and we can barely contain them. He does not seem to have seen Haidt's work on our genetic propensities to one side or the other, which only further complicates trying to be rational about decisions.
The article lists a bunch of experiments that prove this point. It's a good read. I am going to look for more by this author. BUT . . . there does not appear to be any way to get us humans to be truly rational. The best we can do is learn this research and use it for one side or the other. Not a wonderful result. Have you seen anything better along those lines?
Thanks.
