Quotation
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“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.”
Daniel Kahneman · Thinkers beyond philosophy · Modern · 2011
What does it mean?
System 1 is fast, automatic, and does not feel like a choice. System 2 is the attention you spend when the work is effortful, including calculation. The usual reading takes the pair as a story that organises the later biases, not as brain anatomy. A competing reading makes System 1 the villain and System 2 the hero. He thinks System 2 is often lazy and endorses what System 1 already offered. The sentences are chapter 1 of Thinking, Fast and Slow. The names are a convenience. The difference in effort is the point. Speed is not by itself an error.
Did Daniel Kahneman really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Kahneman's own English, the paired definitions in chapter 1. He presents them as characters, a way to talk about two modes, not as two little people in the head.
Where it comes from
Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), chapter 1, The Characters of the Story
Approximate date: 2011.
How to use it
A first answer in a Birmingham interview, fluent and instant, is System 1 doing its job. The check, if the stakes are high, is the effortful second look. Skipping the second look is not what he calls intelligence. It is what he thinks usually happens.
A mindset reading
Do not insult the fast answer for being fast. Ask whether the case deserved the slow one. He thinks many cases do not, and some really do.
Understand the philosophy
Chapter 1 introduces the cast. The key terms are System 1 and System 2, metaphors for modes of thinking. Chapter 7's WYSIATI is what the fast system does with whatever is present. The availability bias, linked from his profile, is one way that stock of examples runs the judgement. The slow system is the library's picture of a check, not a guarantee.
- mind
- knowledge
FAQ
What does it mean?
System 1 is fast, automatic, and does not feel like a choice. System 2 is the attention you spend when the work is effortful, including calculation. The usual reading takes the pair as a story that organises the later biases, not as brain anatomy. A competing reading makes System 1 the villain and System 2 the hero. He thinks System 2 is often lazy and endorses what System 1 already offered. The sentences are chapter 1 of Thinking, Fast and Slow. The names are a convenience. The difference in effort is the point. Speed is not by itself an error.
Did Daniel Kahneman really say this?
Well attested. Kahneman's own English, the paired definitions in chapter 1. He presents them as characters, a way to talk about two modes, not as two little people in the head.
Which work is it in?
Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), chapter 1, The Characters of the Story Approximate date: 2011.