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The Decisive Moment

5th Mar 2009; 18:00

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Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate or we ‘blink’ and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind’s black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they’re discovering this is not how the mind works.

Jonah Lehrer, author and editor-at-large for Seed Magazine, suggests that our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason – and the precise mix depends on the situation. The trick is to determine when to lean on which part of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think.

Join Jonah as he looks to answer two key questions: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?