The mind within the brain -- how we make decisions | David Redish | TEDxUMN

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Are we really free to choose? In this talk, David Redish explores the decision-making processes within the brain and tries to understand how, sometimes, those decisions go wrong.

Dr. David Redish is a Distinguished McKnight Professor of neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. He was trained in computational, theoretical, and experimental neuroscience and has contributed to our understanding of decision-making and cognition. Dr. Redish received a dual-degree BA in the writing seminars (poetry, plays) and computer science from The Johns Hopkins University, and his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. He did postdoctoral work in neuroscience at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Dr. Redish's research seeks to understand how our different learning, memory, and decision-making systems interact to produce behavior. Dr. Redish has published dozens of articles in scientific journals, as well as two books, most recently The Mind within the Brain: How we make decisions and how those decisions go wrong.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[asdfjklo]

My all-time favorite quote on this subject is Schopenhauer's "Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants". You are a slave of what you consider the best option at a particular time. But since you learn new things and are often unable to recall why you made decisions that look puzzling to your current awareness, and because it's hard to accept your personal limits past and present in the face of a very free imagination, you are easily cursed by regret, frustration, and Weltschmerz. Mental health of intelligent, self-aware humans seems like a mess not properly taken into account by evolution. This could be more striking in free Western societies with countless options, though.

[captainzork]

Super great talk. Very interesting. I'd like to learn more about each system. I've been looking for this when writing my propadeutical paper. Thank you, kind Dr. David Redish :) Now I need to figure out what roles awareness and cognitive accessibility play in decision making

[steveohare]

Reflexes are not learned or conscious actions. These are automatic reactions to the immediate environment. Reflexes include removing your hand from an open flame, which is actually processed in the spinal ganglion and not the brain. Reflexes are not choices, they are innate responses.

[Mrelco]

"fair" or "unfair" is just an opinion of man. The Universe don't give a shit what we humans think is fair or unfair. When you talk science, leave opinions out of it.

[josephfarkasdi]

"What does it mean to be a physical being?" Especially within a world of humans where most are *thinking* that they are an essence inhabiting a physical body, and thinking this despite what modern neuro- and genetic sciences and the echoes of ancient eastern traditions are telling us is actually the reality? “What does it mean to choose something?” “If we look in rats, what we find is that the brain structures that are involved in these decision making systems are the same brain structures in rats and humans.” But, of course. All species are fundamentally the same, more so than most of us realize, from the worms in the ground beneath our feet to the volatile and highly creative human primate that is you and I. “The mind is that physical brain we are.” We are more than this. We are the human body-and-mind that generates a conscious “I” in early childhood, an “I” which remains in the flux of developmental change throughout life courtesy of accumulated life experiences. In this, there is scientifically, really, no longer any doubt. We are a human that grows into self-awarenss, and that, then, subjectively and quite passionately convinces itself that it knows that it knows. Determinedly, as can be seen in the resistant comments on this video’s page, despite what our sciences can and does repeatedly and clearly show. Regardless how you react to this video, the science is real and demonstrable, and an open mind can find great benefit to its contemplation. Are you willing to ask the fundamentally real question of “What does it mean to be a physical being”? (“quotes” by David Redish, from this his excellent video presentation)

[Funandconsciousness]

David, when you claim that the mind and the brain are the same thing, the composite entity that I am screams "NO! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"  I KNOW that each one of us is a conscious being, independent of mind and body.  I KNOW that each of us has made a choice to live in a physical reality, and we here happen to have chosen to share this particular spectrum of reality, which we experience by way of the body, with its various sensory and processing mechanisms.
As I see it currently, we (conscious, spirit beings), with our individual experiences, all contribute to - and draw on - a combined, collective mind.  Mind interacts with body, particularly creating and utilizing the brain's processing structure.  But to see mind and brain as "the same thing" is to be missing a most basic understanding of how life works.
That said, it seems to me you got most things right and expressed them in terms most human beings today can grasp, to help further our understandings.  Keep making decisions!