Mind of the Market - Michael Shermer

I would describe this books as being partly psychology, partly scientific and partly philosophical. The goal of this work is to provide an insight into why people make the decisions they do? Evolutionary Psychology is kept as the fundamental reasoning tool behind almost all answers.

The main view of the author contradicts with the view of evolutionary struggle between organisms being absolutely ruthless. Instead the author argues that at least in the case of social organisms like ourselves altruism is as much an evolutionary trait as any other.

The book provides lots of interesting scientific findings and philosophical anecdotes. I will just list some of them here which should clearly indicate what this is about.

- "Happiness is a subjective state of well-being that depends on relative frames of reference, grounded in an evolved psychology that finds meaning in the simple social pleasures and purposes of life"
- "Once a decision is made, we carefully screen subsequent information and filter out all contradictory data, leaving only evidence in support of our choice."
- "For every random act of violence that makes the evening news, there are ten thousand nonrandom acts of kindness that go unrecorded every day."
- "There appears to be a sharp distinction between how people view their own beliefs—as rationally motivated—and how people view the beliefs of others—as emotionally driven."
- "Wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage"

... and this one i really like
- "symptoms of depression—restlessness, agitation, loss of appetite, disturbed sleep, impaired concentration, and loss of motivation—may not be signs of an illness; rather, they may represent an adaptive response to prod you into doing something different in your life."

Try and answer this!
You are walking along a railroad line when you come upon a fork in the track and a switch. There are five workers on one track and one worker on the other track. Suddenly, you realize that a trolley car is hurtling along and is about to hit and kill the five workers unless you throw the switch and divert the car down the other branch, killing the one worker instead. Kill one to save five. Would you throw the switch? Most people say that they would. In a second scenario, instead of coming upon a switch, you happen across a bridge where there is a large man standing next to you. The trolley is once again speeding down the track and is about to hit and kill the five workers, unless you push the large man onto the track, killing him but stopping the car. Kill one to save five. Would you throw the man? Most people say that they would not.