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What Happens in a Philosopher’s Brain? | Philosophy Tube

Philosophy Tube | September 2, 2025



What is bias? How does your brain affect free will, argument, and thinking? Let’s look at “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahnemann – if we want to study philosophy we need to know a bit about brains, biology, and psychology too!

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Daniel Kahnemann, “Thinking Fast and Slow” GET IT HERE: http://tinyurl.com/jkby3ky
Take the Cognitive Reflection Test: http://tinyurl.com/jmaht9y

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Comments

This post currently has 33 comments.

  15. @TheGPOOT

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    Imagine Something like a modern day slightly more civilized Diogenes

    mixed with a stupid version of Alan Watts,

    then ya throw in a less spiritual version of Sadhguru

    With the divisive passionate delivery as Petey green

    Finally top that off with a more hopeful version Charles bukowski…

    And of course just a dash of lead poisoning as a toddler
    Mixed lovingly by the hands of the Divine…

    Bottom line, I feel like one of the greatest philosophers of all time and I need help proving myself wrong….. Or right😏

  16. @Tera_B_Twilight

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    Great question from the Thorns. I have tried expressing this same opinion as the one you used as, "People believe what they can't help believing, according to their reasoning abilities and the information they've been given."

  18. @elisabettasirgiovanni1413

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    What you say is very debatable from a more specialized scrutiny. You may know Gerd Gigerenzer, who showed that is actually statistics and statical education to help with biases… Also Joshua Greene’s studies show that kantian deontology is more connected to system 1 than previously thought … I’d love to say that the goal of philosophy is to improve system 2 but this claim is controversial

  21. @antispeedrun

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    I believe there are varying levels of belief, and that the language we have to describe those levels is insufficient. I might say "I believe that I can fly", but that doesn't mean that I actually believe it. And if I did, I'd likely be mad.

    But the assertion that beliefs can be chosen is itself a thing that one can believe in, and if I believe strongly enough that I can choose to believe in things, this creates a sort of circular logic that I find to be valid despite its circuity. I believe that I can choose to believe things. That doesn't mean that it's always an easy thing to do. Some beliefs are harder to adopt than others. But if something is plausible, it's easier to believe in general, and therefore easier to adopt as an individually held belief.

    I might say "I believe I can fly" and really mean "I want to believe I can fly", while deep down I believe that I can't. But something more nebulous like, "I believe it's going to be a good day" doesn't create the same cognitive dissonance that merely wanting to believe something does. It is therefore easier to get to that point of actually believing it, because the cognitive dissonance is experienced as a sort of friction on the way towards belief.

  24. @stevehansen4112

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    If the cheeky math around 2:25 grabbed you, here's the solution. Bat + ball =1.10. Let's call bat X, and ball Y. X+Y=1.10. We also know that Y(Ball)+1=X(Bat). Substituting (Y+1) for X gives us the equation (Y+1)+Y= 1.10, we can remove the parentheses and simplify, 2Y+1=1.10. Remove the 1 from each side, leaves us with 2Y=.10, and divide by 2 gives us Y=.05. The ball is .05, the bat is 1.05, all works out nice.

  25. @websurfer352

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    That question may prove to be impossible to answer?? Some philosophers have such muddled thoughts that it behooves one to ask if they know what they are thinking??

  26. @eliasbischoff176

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    Interesting thought. My phsychology professor (I study Social Work) told us that people with autism use their system 2 far more than people without autism. (Or at least that was a theory he talked about). Combining that with you saying that learning philosophy is like trying to train your system 2, one could come to the conclusion that people with autism generally speaking could have a natural affinity or talent for philosophy.

    Edit: Of course, who is autistic and who isn´t is based on socially constructed ideas of the "normal"

  27. @KarolaTea

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    Hooooly shit. Now I understand why reading a text in a language I barely understand is so much more physically exhausting than reading the same text when I can intuitively understand the words. It actually needs more energy. Wow.
    Great video, thanks!

  29. @ctomsky

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    I swear I've actually trained my brain to auto-reject the system 1 response and skip to system 2 to second guess myself on everything. If I had to name a single value that I value more than anything else, it would be Doubt, (which is hilariously one of the things that the Bible and Faith in general hates) because thinking critically and trying to know what I don't know or might be wrong about is how you get closer to the truth.

  30. @felooosailing957

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    Hello Olly, I have a couple of observations about this video.1) Daniel Kahneman has a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which is an economics prize administered by the Nobel foundation, but it is not a Nobel prize. This may appear to be just nitpicking, but considering that Nobel prizes award "prestige" to scientists, we have to consider that some of the sciences that do receive a Nobel prize (let's say, physics), have much more solid status epistemologically than economics, and more importantly, are less affected by political ideology and policy making (other actual Nobel prizes, like Literature or Peace, are actually of course much more ideological and determined by politics). In fact, if I were to guess, that a psychologist is rewarded for "having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty", should be considered by all accounts ideological for someone believing at least partially in the fundamentals of the critique of political economy; that is on the one hand, presenting him as "Nobel prize winning" is wrong ("Nobel laureate" is not), and it has certain effects which I am sure you would recognize 1.1) This criticism ultimately binds to the uses of "cognitive x" to finally grant scientific status based on reductionism to an alleged science: say, making "cognitive psychology". But psychology should be examined on its owns merits. Why does it have to do with the above? Because the reification of the homo oeconomicus subject into a psychological, decision-making subject is an essential feature of the ideology of political economy, which ties into the fact that deconstructing political economy actually requires a deconstruction of that most rich of collections, psychology; 2) I guess that because Thinking fast and slow is a science communication effort, it decided to recur to a metaphor; however, by labeling such metaphors as systems, are we not in the risk of reification, not only from us as readers, but that the researcher actually intuitively treats them as separate. Can one say, for example, that "system 1" may be broken, but no "system 2"? How about the other way around? What is their relationship? Most importantly, if they are one and the same, how do we know which lane we are on? To suggest two systems in order to argue that we have a brain which has both ready-made answers and intuitive responses apart from its actually analytical mechanisms seems kind a stretch; also, by labeling them just "system 1" and "system 2" they are put equal, but they appear very different in their features. 3) Especially with the example of the librarian and the farmer, there is something like a risk of confusion. That is: anyone just thinking will actually come to the conclusion: "well, being quiet, tidy, meek, neat and, organized, is not part of the concept of being either a librarian nor a farmer", so this premise is irrelevant for the question. Then, you use the fact that a random person is much more likely to be a farmer than a librarian. Perhaps it is just me, but your explanation feels to imply that in spite of being all of those things, he is still more likely to be a farmer, and is not the right way to approach the issue, 3.1) this ties into anther thing: coming to this conclusion only requires that one is trained in logic (not being an expert, just trained), which I guess would form part of "system 2". This of course brings us to the question: if "system 2" is trained into, as you say at the end, are we just simply talking about trained an untrained brains. That is: do we have a proper frontier between thinking just about the brain and the education it receives?; 4)finally, talking about scientific ideology, there is the hypothesis of these two systems being the result of adaptation. Adaptationist bias is probably the most common form of ideology amongst practitioners of biology, and by extension scientists untrained in it but somehow attempting to be "materialistic and scientific". So: our brains are material objects which have been and currently are subjected to the mechanisms that cause evolution, only one of which adaptation, which isn't the most common, nor the fastest: there is random mutation, there are chain gene networks, as I believe evolutionary developmental biology labels them; and there are of course exaptations. Adaptation is the most recurred to because it falls straight into the "survival of the fittest" motive (which you actually have acknowledged in your Marx and Darwin video to be problematic), but it is by no means the only possible explanation. 4.1) The way you present this has to be mentioned: you say that our brains evolved in a context in which you required fast responses, as do any other animals, so perhaps what I am reading as a typical adaptationist bias (that animals change into the changes they need, which can lead to a Lamarckian representation intuitively) is something slightly more refined: I guess that what you are saying is the fact that we kept a vestigial structure even as we developed a more refined analytical one. But still: calling someone out on adaptationist bias is a valid observation. 4.2) Most importantly, theories for the scientific method based on hypothesis accommodating better a certain fact (like, proposing adaptation for the discovered aspects of thinking) have a host of epistemological problems. Popper falsificationism, sociological accounts of science like Thomas S. Kuhn, lack-of-an-actual-method Feyerabend ideas, constructivism in the Bachelardian sense, Althusserian's "dialectical materialism" and the transformation of ideology into science (which I adhere to most), are all different attempts to account for actual scientific knowledge that do not fall into the problems of the traditional scientific method rationale; albeit, they are works in progress and have problems of their own.

  31. @emily-hj2hh

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    Thoughts:
    I think a lot of system 1 is affected by the limbic system, the amydala, the lizard brain. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, anxiety and trauma responses. Addiction and dopamine reward systems that help to easily combat feeling bad, and produce a high stronger than glucose, or a relaxation of the chemicals that affect the amygdala. If someone has been through a lot of unsafe situations, feelings of emotional neglect, or just has a more sensitive nervous system, experiences otherness, witnesses others going through the same, that can easily cement connections and memories that can be triggered by reminders, even if the situation is safe. Some lead to fast thinking, a greater analysis of risk factors, but others thyroid issues, anxiety, panic, all the system clusters labeled by psychiatrists as illness (which can unfortunately produce more of a sense of otherness, especially with intersecting identities, cultural experiences, some socially advantageous for bad reasons, that still appear and are repeated.) Breast feeding and white matter does have some to do with how fast that second system can work, and the brain can communicate between it's parts. Nutrition and actions during pregnancy and early life experiences. But these are not always true, can correlate, and are not always predictors or determinants.
    I do think the one thing you can do to reward system two is try to abandon having to be right, and indemnifying with beliefs, but put the priority in understanding – of people, self, and the world, and try to self reflect, soothe anxieties and emotions and not always go to the first decision. And, obviously, self care like sleep, as much safety and fulfilling self conversation, food for that part of the brain intellectually, and literally with protein and complex carbohydrates or fiber that have not so short of a burst as glucose, are better absorbed and released, and don't have the crash after, and the addiction of simple sugars. Stay away from addictive behaviors, without demonizing and obsessing, focus on passions and areas where your brain excels and works best – whether that's visual, metaphorical, kinesthetic and while moving, auditorily, and use that as a portal to understand the world. It's worth practising and repeating what are not strengths, but valuing the unique complexity of your own brain and trying to understand it, take care of it, and use it wisely, while knowing you will never fully know, trying to meet others as equals to see what wisdom you can get from them – even if its only to test out their ideas and determine they're all wrong.
    I like to read the writings of other minds. Speak to them about how their own system works. Watch their actions to see if it matches up with their words. Practice my own thinking, and use the world as the stage and labratory to do so, write and paint and see what comes out I may not know was there. But..I'm not sure I agree of the language that one part of the brain is lower. I do think there is one part that would be considered lower that is quite important, besides quick impulse reactions in an unsafe situation, because those unfortunately do exist, especially more for some than others. And that perhaps is what some would call a bit of moral bias, empathy, and disgust at things that I would say is.. good. Though it can get hijacked with propaganda, scapegoating, phobias, hatred.
    I am happy that in people something stirs when they see someone else being horribly mistreated. That it is hard to live with themselves if they do that. I guess it might be considered higher to have a deep philosophical talk with onesself about what is good or bad..but I've seen philosophers get it wrong. So many times. Honestly, the ones most studied most of the time. About just the ways to treat others, and who counts as worthy of good treatment, and what that looks like. Rationally or logically trying to condone things that are wrong, talking only to other "philosophers" or sitting in ivory towers away from connection. I'd hope if someone sees another being hurt, or oppressed, it triggers a reaction of pain or disgust. When one person is in power and the other isn't, and it's done to inflict pain on purpose, or by neglect and narcissism. That it would trigger an emotional response. I know someone who tests on the range of psychopathy, but says that he has good values that rationality governs. He is very interested in constantly talking about himself, but I can recognize love and connection, and he is very intelligent. But now..is a non mask wearer while being a doctor and essential worker who didn't lock down.
    Hey, it's America.
    Just thought I'd write this as the world is missing on some empathy, in the hopes it resonates with someone. Pattern recognition can lead people with emotional language in stressful times into creatively awful mindsets. Imagination filling the gaps and "family" being those who are hated by similar people, repeating the same mythos told for centuries for no reason but control and meeting that other, with a fear response and the declaration that they are less and dangerous. But. Pattern recognition can also link one idea to another. Create amazing stories with meaning and truth, or find a similarity, a "form" to truth. I've found that when my brain and my heart sync up, I'm in the right place. We do have neurons in our heart and gut, so maybe it's literal. But love just feels good, and acting for good does when it makes sense for the whole, when your truth is being lived and it logically aligns. For me. For others, maybe not.
    But hey, we don't know, and I like the qualitative where you try to ask and listen without having a hypothesis, because your mind can only do so much by itself. It's plastic though, and scientists were wrong with they determined that plasticity only lasted for a time. Some don't have the time or the motivation to exercise it, the self esteem, the energy, the level of safety and getting out of that amygdala. I don't see non-human animals as lower, but why not have that uniquely philosophizing brain without using it. As a species we've had some interesting motivations and actions that it might be easier to look away from, or..human to. But if we do, they will always repeat, until we've destroyed what of the earth is left, and ourselves. Can't understand the whole part by just looking at the bits we like.
    Testing these ideas, constantly trying to understand and feeling vast empathy and connection, I've still come up with that otherness from first memory. But to any other youtube essayists out there thinking and feeling consantly, especially lately, trying to see the only good side of anything, which is maybe growing, figuring out your own mistakes, loving, giving, being true, finding truth, staying unknowing, skeptical, critically thinking, casting out the mental colonization of any ideas that are just there to be reinforced for control and superstition, phobias and violence, pulling out the splinters of other people's actions and words..your cool. Keep figuring it out. And take care.

  33. @noticias0915

    September 2, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    I appreciate this Kahnman book specifically being covered and I still appreciate the ~> 20 minute video releases and not only b/c of nostalgia (identified bias)

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