sorites paradox and, 99-100 Loglan (language), 104-5
losing touch with reality, 155-58. See
also mental illness Lovell, Jim, 2 Luria, Alexander, 63
machine translation, ii9n manic depression. See bipolar disor
der Mann, Merlin, 24 Marx, Chico, 65 memorization, 35,173 memory, 18-39. See also contextual
memory common quirks of, 18-20,31-34 in people vs. computers, 19-24 as unconscious, 24 -25
mental contamination, 43-51 mental errors, 144-49 mental illness, 149-60
context and, 15m evolutionary psychology and, 151 55 recurring patterns in, 149-51 mere familiarity effect. See familiarity metacognition, 176 method of loci, 34 midbrain, 13 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 71 Mill, John Stuart, 6 Miller, Geoffrey, 133 Miller, George, 130 mind. See also neural substrates; reflexive vs. deliberative systems improvement of reasoning skills and, 165-72 as kluge, 6-7,13,14-17
mind (cont.) as optimal, 6-9 reflexive vs. deliberative systems in, 51-53 Mischel, Walter, 69-70 mnemonic devices, 34-36 money evolution and, 75-76 induced lust for, 76n relative thinking about, 73-75,78 moral choice, 90-92, rjon moral dumbfounding, 91-92 mortality salience, 50,172 motivated reasoning belief and, 55-57 mental illness and, 155-60 pleasure and, 139-43 music, 133-34
Nash, Ogden, 110 naturalistic fallacy, 164 natural selection. See evolution Nesse, Randolph, 124,127 neural substrates ancestral vs. deliberative system and, 13,51,142-43 logical reasoning and, 63 moral choices and, 92 pleasure and, 142-43 Nilsson, Harry, 56 Nisbett, Richard, 167 nonhuman primates, 14,116 nucleus accumbens, 143
objectivity confirmation bias and, 53-55 motivated reasoning and, 55-57 subjective impressions and, 45
onomatopoeia, 108 opportunity costs, 169 optimization, 6-9 Orgel, Leslie, 16 Orwell, George, 29-30 others, attitudes toward familiarity and, 50 happiness and, 125,142 overgeneralization, 159-60
paralinguistic information, 114,119 21 paranoia, 156 parentheses, i2on 'partial matching,' logic of, 111-12 perception belief and, 65-67 choice and, 89 perfection evolutionary history and, 9-11, 16-17,162-63 human language and, 96-101,11316 value of imperfections and, 16364 Perkins, David, i74n Perot, Ross, 30 personalization, 159-60 Pew Research Center, 2007 survey, 58 'Philosophy for Children' curriculum, 175-76 phonation, 106 phonemes, 109- 10 physical disorders, beneficial, 152 Pinker, Steven, 7,36,116,135 Piraha (Amazonian language), 113 'pitchfork effect,' 42
Plato, 101 pleasure context and, 138-39 duration of, 135-38 evolution of, 124-27,128-35 mental illness and, 158-59 self-deception and, 139-43 'pleasure technologies,' 135 poetry, 38,97n, 164 pointing-at-circles task, 71-72 Pollyanna (Porter), 55 Porter, Eleanor, 55 positive priming effect, 124 'postal-code memory' in computers, 20-21 human cognition and, 31-34,36 prefrontal cortex, 142-43 Premack, David, 116 The Price Is Right (TV show), 78n priming. See also framing belief and, 43-44 contextual memory and, 23,24, 25 decision making and, 88-89 pleasure and, 124 for rationality, 172 prioritization, 22 prisoner's dilemma, 88-89 procrastination, 147-49 Proust, Marcel, 24,25 Pullum, Geoff, 121
quantifiers, 112-13
Rachlin, Howard, 85-86 rational choice theory evolution and, 72,75-76, 84 reaching and, 70-71
relative sense of value and, 73-75, 78-80 sunk costs and, 77-78 weakness of the will and, 76-77 reaching, 71-73 reasoning power, improvement of, 165-72 recency belief and, 45-46 contextual memory and, 31-34, 37,45-46 reconstruction techniques, 33 recursion, 115-18 redundancy, 97,98-99 reflexive vs. deliberative systems, 51 53 addiction and, 155 contingency plans and, 168 decision making and, 86-88,9294 language and, 113 mental disorders and, 155-60 mental errors and, 145-46 pleasure and, 123-24,128,134,14243 religion, 58-59 remnants of history, notion of, 1,162 respiration, 106 Roediger, Henry, 37 Rommel, Erwin, 60 Rubin, Robert, 165 ruminative cycle, 157-58 Russell, Bertrand, 97
sample size, 167 satisficing, 11 Schacter, Dan, 37 schizophrenia, 151,158
scientific thinking bias and, 55 education in, 175-76 self-control addictions and, 126-27,130,155 future discounting and, 85-86 precommitment and, 167-68 visceral feelings and, 89-90 weakness of the will and, 69-70, 76-77,85n self-deception. See confirmation bias; motivated reasoning self-improvement suggestions for, 165-72 sex daydreaming about, 146-47 evolution of pleasure and, 127, 129-30 lust and, 89-90 men vs. women and, 8 moral intuitions and, 91-92 music and, 133~34 reasons for having, i24n sickle cell anemia, 152 Simon, Herb, 11 Simpson, O. J., 33,54 Smith, Adam, 6 smoking, and beliefs, 57 Smylie, Ed, 2 social approval, need for, 154-55 sociopathy, 152-53 sorites paradox, 99-100 source memory, 33-34 spacing out, 146-47 speech errors, 95 speech sounds, 105-10,122 Spinoza, Baruch de, 65-66 Spooner, Rev. William Archibald, 95
statistics, 167 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 121 Stewart, Potter, 123 sunk costs, 77-78 syllogism, 1-2,60-62 syntactic trees, 111,116-18
television watching, 126 temptation. See self-control Thaler, Richard, 78n time complex decisions and, 170-71 memory for, 32-33 procrastination and, 1 tongue-twisters and, 108-9 tongue- twisters, 95,108-9 Tooby, John, 7 tradeoffs, 7-9 trolley problem, 90,91 truth, and belief, 64-67 Tuchman, Barbara, 15 Tversky, Amos, 46
uncertainty. See future discounting
vagueness, 99-100,121. See also language video games, 132 visceral feelings, and choice, 89-92 Von Rundstedt, Gerd, 60
Wason, Peter, 53-54 Wasow, Tom, 114 weakness of the will, 70,76. See also self- control Weinrich, Max, 102 Wikipedia, 70,174 Wilkins, John, 101
Wilson, Margo, 8 for quantification, 112-13 Wilson, Timothy, 135-36,171 as unsystematic, 95-96,101-3, windshield wipers, 4,144 121-22 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 111 words Zamenhof, Ludovic Lazarus, 102 logic of partial matching and, 110-12
