“no one but myself can be blamed for my fall. I have been my own greatest enemy-the cause of my own disastrous fate”
― Napoléon Bonaparte
On December 2, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte ascended to become Napoleon I, the first emperor of the Bonaparte dynasty in France. Then, on December 2, 1805, he defeated the Austrian and Russian coalition forces in the Battle of Austerlitz and the following year, he occupied Berlin, the capital of Prussia, becoming the undisputed master of Europe. He became the first person since the Roman Emperor Caesar to rule almost all of Europe.
Now, only Russia remained. However, his desire to conquer Russia ultimately brought Napoleon himself down. The core capability of Napoleon’s army, like that of Genghis Khan’s army, was speed. Napoleon’s French army reduced the baggage of the army and employed methods to procure food as much as possible from the enemy. As a result, the marching speed of the French army increased to about 120 steps per minute, compared to 70 steps per minute for the enemy army at the time, giving them a competitive edge in mobility.
However, the march to Russia was a different story. The supply line from France to Moscow was different from what the Napoleon army had experienced in the past. As winter approached and the harvest of wheat was scarce, local procurement of food became difficult. Napoleon, who was called the god of war, also made mistakes in the issue of supplies, essential for mobility. In fact, the Russian campaign itself was a war that could not leverage the advantage of mobility, which was the strength of the French army. Napoleon himself admitted, “Perhaps going to Moscow was a mistake.”
No matter how much of a genius one may be, on the long expeditionary road leading a large army, how could one know what would happen, and how could one anticipate whether the enemy would retreat, burning their food and lodgings and leaving?
The world we encounter is not easy. There are too many variables, and when they start to interact with each other, it is impossible to express all the possibilities that may arise. That’s why we call the world a complex system. Synergy, which means 1+1 is not 2 but more than that, is ultimately a phenomenon that arises from interaction. When three or more come together, the network phenomenon begins to appear. As the number of members increases, productivity increases, but complexity also increases geometrically.
So, the world is becoming increasingly complex. Living in such a complex world, we seek to maximize our interests. Such humans are called rational beings in economics. The rationality assumed by economics differs from the rationality we talk about in everyday life. The rationality of economics means that calculations of profit and loss are accurate.
Therefore, this rationality is based on the selfish nature of human beings. Economic human beings find and calculate aspects that are profitable and don’t make mistakes in calculating them. Who wouldn’t want such rationality? However, humans are not as rational as they want to be. Instead of being “rational beings,” we are actually “humans who want to be rational.” But why can’t we be rational?
It’s because of the limitations of our brain. Compared to the vast storage capacity of over 20 million books in the Library of Congress, our brain’s ability to think is really insignificant. Especially, our computing power is even worse. Nowadays, the thinking speed of a PC (desktop computer) is over 1 gigahertz, while the thinking speed of a human is about 10 megahertz. Just looking at the numbers, a PC is at least 100 times faster than our thinking speed.
In fact, even if the difference in thinking speed is not 100 times but only 2 times, it is not a figure that can be easily overcome. It’s hard to beat even by chance. When humans need to make decisions with two or more elements, they show information processing abilities that are far inferior to even a poorly performing computer. Moreover, we make mistakes in calculations frequently.
Furthermore, when we have to think about something, we have to bring the necessary information from long-term memory to short-term memory. It’s like instructing a computer to perform a task by specifying the data to be processed and bringing it to RAM for processing.
If we are thinking about something at this moment, it is a combination of a few pieces of information recalled like this. Depending on the person, if we talk about the short-term memory of a human in numbers, it’s about 7 plus or minus 2 pieces of information. If you hear someone being called a genius, they can remember about 9 pieces of information at once.
However, how can we manage our complex lives and make the necessary judgments with such limited abilities? It’s because we have something called the unconscious. The author of “Strangers to Ourselves,” Timothy Wilson, emphasizes that our unconscious mind accounts for more than 99% of our total thinking. In other words, most of our lives rely on the unconscious. With the help of the unconscious, we produce results that surpass the limits of consciousness.
Whether conscious or unconscious, our memories, like other complex systems, take the form of networks. Thinking can be seen as the process of connecting the links in this network. Our thoughts begin with recalling a single word from our memory. From there, we associate and think about the words connected to that word. In this process, new connections are also made.
Whenever a word suddenly comes to mind while reading a book or listening to someone speak, there was always some stimulus that triggered that word to come to mind. It could be the sound of the wind or a touching story. In any case, our thoughts involve bringing in information connected through association. Consider the limited amount of information we can recall at once.
When we need to make a quick judgment, rather than considering all variables, we base our decision on a few simple variables that come to mind instantly. Although not precise, this evolution of our thinking towards efficiency is a result of our thoughts prioritizing efficiency over accuracy.
Understanding the methods and weaknesses of our thoughts allows us to comprehend what is discussed in a branch of economics called behavioral economics. Psychologists and behavioral economists enumerate and explain various types of irrationality, but if we had to explain it in one sentence, it’s that our thoughts increase efficiency through anchoring.
In our language, it’s called “throwing down the anchor.” Anchoring is simply making the first word or image we encounter the hub of our thoughts. My previous article, “Reconstruction of Knowledge,” classified various errors in thinking, but they were all results of thinking anchored to a certain idea. Whether it’s a fixed idea or confirmation bias, all irrationalities in our thinking can be attributed to the anchoring effect. We typically interpret new information based on the information that first comes to mind. If we become fixated on existing information and anchor our thoughts completely to that information, it becomes a fixed idea. If we selectively choose information that is convenient for us, it becomes confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias generally refers to selective thinking. Our judgments are influenced by the most dramatic or recent events we already know or have stored in our unconscious. Our decision-making systems have evolved this way. When we have preconceptions, we tend to accept only the information that supports our initial thoughts and ignore information that contradicts it.
In this process, we often lose the rationality we strive for. However, it enables quick decision-making. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Anchoring our consciousness to our experiences and knowledge is also because our thoughts delegate a lot to the unconscious for efficiency. The trap of fixed ideas occurs because we end up seeing what we want to see and believing what we want to believe.
In particular, we tend to avoid words or phenomena associated with danger but tend to accept what is given to us as a positive anchor. This phenomenon occurs because our innate nature is more inclined to avoid danger than to seek adventure, and because we prioritize existing information, it happens. There’s also an aspect of accepting the movement or opinions of the group we belong to beyond what is desirable. This could be a means of avoiding danger or due to instinctive sociality. It’s the perception of negative aspects being stronger than reality, perhaps because one significant risky situation has a history associated with survival.
Our irrationality is ultimately a rational way for humans to surpass the limits of thought.
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