You're surprised by something, but you don't really know what surprised you; you recognize someone, but you don't really know what cues cause you to recognize that person.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the complexity of human perception and recognition.
In this quote, Daniel Kahneman highlights the often unconscious processes of our minds that influence our reactions and recognitions. It emphasizes that many of our responses stem from implicit cues that we may not be aware of, suggesting that our understanding of the world is often guided by subconscious influences.
In practice
In a psychology lecture discussing cognitive biases, one may reference Kahneman's quote to illustrate the intricacies of human perception.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
Germany's path to greater military assertiveness has not been linear, and it never will be. Germans do not believe that talking at roundtables solves every problem, but neither do they think that shooting does.
Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.
Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.
All the fish needs is to get lost in the water. All man needs is to get lost in Tao.
America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.