A. David Redish - The Mind within the Brain: How We Make Decisions and How those Decisions Go Wrong

The Mind within the Brain

How We Make Decisions and How Those Decisions Go Wrong

A. DAVID REDISH

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Redish, A. David.

The mind within the brain : how we make decisions and how those decisions go wrong / A. David Redish.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

Summary: In The Mind within the Brain, A. David Redish brings together cutting-edge research in psychology,
robotics, economics, neuroscience, and the new fields of neuroeconomics and computational psychiatry,
to offer a unified theory of human decision-making. Most importantly, Redish shows how vulnerabilities, or
failure modes, in the decision-making system can lead to serious dysfunctions, such as irrational behavior,
addictions, problem gambling, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Ranging widely from the surprising
roles of emotion, habit, and narrative in decision-making to the larger philosophical questions of how
mind and brain are related, what makes us human, the nature of morality, free will, and the conundrum
of robotics and consciousness, The Mind within the Brain offers fresh insight into some of the most
complex aspects of human behavior.Provided by publisher.

ISBN 9780199891887 (hardback)

1. Decision making. I. Title.

BF448.R43 2013

153.83dc23* 2012046214

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

For Laura, Jay, Danny, and Sylvia,
the best decisions I ever made.

If I could, I would reach beyond the cage of bone,

to touch the mind within the brain,

to reach the frightened nerves that wrap the heart;

I would speak your name there.

Our decisions make us who we are. Although we would like to think that our decisions are made rationally, deliberatively, many decisions are not. We all know that some of our decisions are made emotionally, and some are made reactively. Some have their intended consequences, and some have consequences we never imagined possible.

We are physical beings. The human brain is a complex network of neurons and other cells that takes information in from the world through its sensory systems and acts on the world through its motor systems. But how does that network of cells, in constant dynamic flux, become the person you are? How does the mind fit into that small place in the cage of bone that is our skull? How does it process information? How does it perceive the world, determine the best option, select an action, and take that action? How does it fall in love? Laugh at the overwhelming emotion of holding an infant? How does it create great art or great music? How does it feel the triumphant emotion of Beethovens Ode to Joy or the devastating pathos of Bob Dylans Knock Knock Knocking on Heavens Door? Just how does the lady sing the blues? How does it get addicted and how does it break that addiction? How does it have a personality? What makes you you and me me?

Fundamentally, all of these questions are about how the being that you recognize as yourself fits into this physical brain nestled in your skull. Fundamentally, these questions are about how that brain makes decisions. This book is an attempt to answer that question.

A few years ago, John Gessner, who runs a local program for people with gambling problems and their families, asked me if I would be willing to give a talk to his clients on decision-making. I had been giving talks to Jan Dubinskys BrainU program for high school teachers interested in neuroscience and had recently given a talk to frontline medical professionals (doctors, nurses, and addiction social workers) on my laboratorys work identifying vulnerabilities in decision-making systems. John had heard of this talk and wanted me to present this work to his clients.

I protested that I was not a medical professional and that I could not tell them how to fix what was broken. He said that they had lots of people to tell them that, what they wanted was someone to tell them whyWhy do we make the choices we do? He said they wanted to know why those decisions get made wrong, especially when they knew what the right choices were.

The lecture itself went very well. There were several dozen people in the audience, and they were involved and asking questions throughout. And then, afterwards, they had so many questions that I stayed there answering questions for hours. There was a hunger there that I had not appreciated until I met those gamblers and their families, an almost desperate desire to understand how the brain works. They had seen how things can go wrong and needed an explanation, particularly one that could explain how they could both be conscious beings making decisions and yet still feel trapped. Somehow, that science lecture on how the multiple decision-making systems interact reached them. I realized then that there was a book I had to write.

Over the past three years, this book has morphed and grown. My goal, however, remains to explain the science of how we make decisions. As such, an important part of this book will be to identify what questions remain. My goal is not to provide a self-help book to help you make better decisions. I am not going to tell you what you should do. Nor are the answers to curing addiction or poor decisions herein. You should check with your own medical professionals for treatment. Every individual is unique, and your needs should be addressed by someone directly familiar with them. Nevertheless, I hope that you find the book illuminating. I hope you enjoy reading it. It has been tremendously fun to write.

One of the remarkable things that has occurred over the past several decades is the convergence of different fields on the mechanisms of decision-making. Scientific fields as diverse as psychology, robotics, economics, neuroscience, and the new fields of neuroeconomics and computational psychiatry have all been converging on the recognition that decision-making arises from a complex interaction of multiple subsystems. In fact, these fields have converged on a similar categorization of the differences between the subsystems. In this book, we will explore how this convergence explains the decision-making that we (as humans) do.