Daniel Kahneman

Introduction

Valid intuitions develop when experts have learned to recognize familiar elements in a new situation and to act in a manner that is appropriate to it.
When faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution (intuitive heuristics).
When the search for an intuition solution fails, we switch to a slower, more deliberate and effortful form of thinking.

Part 1: Two Systems

System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.
System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.
System 2 requires attention and is disrupted when attention is drawn away.
Most of what your System 2 think and do originates in your System 1, but System 2 takes over when things get difficult, and it normally has the last word.
System 2 is too slow and inefficient to substitute for System 1. The best we can do is to learn to recognize situations which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high.

The more System 2 exerts mental effort, the more your pupils dilate.
We have limited control over the effort of doing a task because naturally, we prefer laziness.
System 2 is the only one that can follow rules, compare objects on several attributes, and make deliberate choices between options.

Mihaly’s flow is a state of effortless concentration so deep that people lose a sense of time, of themselves, and of their problems.
People who are cognitively busy are more likely yield to temptation, make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.