Neuroscience and Decision

A certain class of stroke victim provides examples of decision incompetence.

These unfortunate people cannot make a decision. Unless told, they won’t get out of bed in the morning, shower, etc.

Curiously, once they start a sequence – say shaving – they don’t stop. Unless told, "That’s enough, mate," he’ll keep on going. It seems that, as the prompt to make the decision to start something is absent, then they also lack the ability to sense when the need is satisfied – stop.

Neurologist Antonio Damasio studied the phenomenon. He concludes from case studies that decision is based on emotion, and hence is essentially unreliable.

He’s partly right. A lot of decision is based on emotion – gut feeling - and is thus error-prone.

However, there is another way. Decision made by reference to hard evidence – numbers, rules – is reliable. That’s decision theRed Flag way. It all adds up to certainty.