Colors of my World

What a powerful book that I’ve just read. There are so many things can just happen in a split second – Blink. Some people make judgments based on their careful analyses and instinctive thinking, but some people just make good decision based on their instinctive thinking. The power of thinking without thinking has become very interesting and fascinating to me.

Instinctive thinking is based on our unconscious cognition and intuition. Unconscious cognition is beyond the immediate awareness that happens very quickly and spontaneously without thinking; and intuition is an act of knowing or sensing without the sense of rational processes. According to Jonathan Schooler’s Insight Puzzle, given the example of meeting the waitress at a restaurant, it is very hard to describe a person in words. Interestingly, I went out for coffee after church with friends today. We happened to talk about a mutual friend of ours, Melissa, to one of our friends, and she did not remember how Melissa looked like, so we tried to describe how she looked like. However, we got stuck after telling her about Melissa’s hair, eyes, ethnicity, and body type. We use our deliberate cognition to describe Melissa verbally, nonetheless, we ran out of words or descriptions about Melissa. Similarly to Jonathan Schooler’s Insight Puzzle, I would run out of words too. With the sense of knowing without rationally and deliberately thinking, we unconsciously can point out who the waitress is right away within a second if she stands in front of us. These are what the intuitive and nonverbal kind of cues and experiences we have. Furthermore, recognizing people’s faces requires our implicit memory, where the unconscious cognition is used. Implicit memory is a type of memory in which the previous experiences in performance aid with the task without conscious awareness of those previous experiences. By meeting or seeing the waitress, which is an experience, and ordering food from her, which is a task, we unconsciously remember her face; and when you meet her the next time, your implicit memory and unconsciousness tell you that you recognize that waitress because you met her and interacted with her.

On the other hand, we also rely on both deliberate and instinctive thinking to make good decisions. The officer David Klinger interview is a great example of relying on both thinking. He made one of the most important and best decisions because he thoroughly thought about the whole situation with the boy. He explained he did not shoot him was because of his age. He deliberately thought the boy was still young, and yet to experience life himself. With that conscious cognition, he delivered a message to himself that he was not going to shoot him. On top of that, the boy showed a lot of fear on his face, and the officer was able to read his mind because of what he perceived visually from the frightened face of the boy. It also brought back to what I talked about on the previous paragraph on implicit memory. The officer was also able to implicitly use his memories and past events that he learned to judge the life-death situation as fast as possible at that very moment. He then instinctively and immediately knew that he was not going to shoot the boy because of what he gained from his past experiences and what he perceived in other situations let him made the one of the smartest decisions.

We, as human, sometimes make good judgment and decision by thinking deliberately and instinctively. However, there are times that require us to think just instinctively. I agree with Malcolm that every moment is made of series moving parts, and every one those parts gives us an chance to correct and to change for the better. We just need to know how our minds work no matter what our weaknesses or strengths are in that very moment –Blink, and act on what it takes for the best judgment and decision in life.