How your gut outperforms the brain in strategic cognition

Imagine you are standing inside a boxing ring fighting against your opponent with an advanced level of agility and strength. Your mind constantly produces a series of thoughts that dictates where you should move, whether you dodge or uppercut her depending on how wild your imagination currently is. Surreal? Pablo Picasso once claimed "everything you can imagine is real".

While you are still thinking, you are smitten right on your face by Mike, harnessing his instinctive fighting skill rather than what you have been doing in this combat; planning your next move. You suddenly fall 'down-to-earth', which is good, because people admire a humble person. Apologize for my bad jokes. Anyway, you are half-conscious, laying down on the ring as the referee is counting. You hear "nine... teee..."

Blackout.....

You are knocked out by a world-class boxing champion and thus it is okay. Mike approach you and say "everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth"

Let's delve deeper into this boxing anecdote. Hmm... No need. Cogently said, thinking costs you the match. Wait a second, but isn't it our thinking mind that allowed us to survive throughout a series of evolutionary events? As a species, we have developed a tremendous improvement in our cognitive ability. We learned so much better compared to any other animals to the extent that we were able to collectively hunt for food, portion how much to eat as necessary, and store the excess for subsequent feast.

Can having this superiority, at some point in time, backfire in certain scenarios?

Fast-forward several millennia into the future, nowadays people literally have hundreds of decisions to make in a day. Imagine a curse that when you wake up one morning, you suddenly have no choice but to have to consciously decide what to do with 100% awareness.

Should I boil an egg? Oh no, I should definitely go to the loo before anything. But checking out the weather forecast is also important, but not after I take a sip of my morning beverage. Hell no, I should brush my teeth before anything else.

The list goes on interminably until your brain hurts. This is to show that the energy required for doing such tasks is very demanding and can easily be depleted.

The question will then be, when are we supposed to think? Like to really think.

The answer depends on what kind of thinking you would like to perform. Tversky & Kahneman dichotomized thinking into Fast (type 1) and Slow (type 2). Thinking Fast is the form of cognitive mechanics that heavily rely on the importance of being idle (oops), I mean the importance of having heuristics or so-called gut feeling. This style materializes as we habituate ourselves to repeat the same activities over and over again. As thinking consumes a lot of energy, this adaptation allows us to harness some sort of mental shortcut for a given scenario, hence avoiding the need to burn marginal calories for the brain.

On the other hand, Thinking Slow is correlated to the more considerate and deliberate act of cognition, which requires a lot more resources to perform. Activities like writing a compelling argument, analyzing data to synthesize conclusions, and critically thinking about the cost and benefit of something have been exemplary to demonstrate how exorbitant the energy expenditure is.

Who would have thought that the imagination of becoming a boxer on the get-go leads us to learn that the ramification stretches far beyond boxing into most aspects of our life? Next time you become a boxer, you know that you should utilize your Type 1 Thinking, just like when you plan anything mundane or your daily routines like what to have for breakfast, what badass clothes to wear, and whatnot. Alternatively, just flip a coin and let the randomness decide your fate. Remember that even making trivial choices consumes a major portion of our energy bank so we'll be better off spending it on something significant like starting up a project, selecting a career path, and deciding whether your date can also be your life partner. Unfortunately, some people misbehave to let the breakfast menu be decided by Type 2 Thinking and to let the date be decided by fate.

We may then safely infer that perhaps the reason why we developed so much cognitively was not to allow us to think as we live by. Rather, the blessing comes in the form of a simple realization that we have the free will to opt whether Thinking Fast or Thinking Slow is more appropriate for a given situation. After all, the decision is yours : )

PS: the alternative of boxing anecdote, but for real.

That day was not my best performance as I hadn't scored any goals at all and my calf was hit very hard by an oscillating giant knee of his, I mean it literally because my opponent was super stocky. It hurt so much and I could no longer play so I decided to get out of the field and sat down. While watching the game continued to proceed, I reflected on the fact that I only had one day per week to play soccer because I was just way too busy on the other days. I stood up and came back to the field. This was what happened. Someone passed the ball to me while I was standing at the center of the playing field. One opponent ran towards me at his full speed and with the blink of an eye, I swerved the ball to my right, dodged my opponent, and volleyed it towards the goalkeeper with a slight post-kicking momentum, certainly with the existing pain on my calf. Surprisingly, the ball was straight in, followed by the cheers from all people watching the game. My act was entirely automated under Type 1, which happened naturally, just like when I'm writing this article now. Wait, but doesn't writing involve Type 2 more than Type 1?