I wrote my dissertation on the use of decision theory as a framework for building simulations of real-world activity. Today, making simulations of activities from forming the US budget to running a farm are common. The simulation angle is interesting but so is the fundamental act of making a choice, of selecting from a set of possibilities, in a game or in life.
I am interested in people making choices, whether it is of someone to marry, a car to buy, or a movie or book to read. Amazon.com has begun offering a free sample from a book to try to give the customer a way of sampling the book, much as a customer in a bookstore might read the jacket information and a bit of the book to decide whether to buy it. My experience with this offering so far has been mixed since the sample seems to be the first chapter but my technique of examining a paper book would not be limited to the first chapter.
I have avoided buying paper books since they usually cost more and are more trouble to care for than a Kindle version. But I still enjoy visiting bookstores, where I tend to fall into an old habit. I look at the books and immediately decide that most of them are not for me. However, authors, editors, book jacket designers and adwriters are skilled at promoting their wares and I have a habit of choosing a book that might be promising and buying it. I try to be discriminating and tough with myself but I often cave and buy.
Some months ago, I did that with The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar. Given my interest in and knowledge of some (older) research and thinking about choice and decision making, I was attracted to the book and wanted get a feel for what it might be about. These days, "The Art of Choosing" could be a novel or the history of a rock band. The author's name seems like it might signal a connection to India, much like that excellent writer of matters medical, Atul Gawande. Turns out the book is really about choice and the author is a professor of business at Columbia University. Besides that, she is blind and has been since she was in the 11th grade when a rare retinal disease left her with only the ability to detect light.
I will get around to reading the book. I hope it sheds a little light on what is known about choices people make. I don't have time or inclination to read a book through to see if I want to read it. I won't sit through a movie to see if I want to sit through it. I have to make many choices, large and small, more or less on a hunch, an impression. I can be fairly imaginative about ways to convince myself afterwards that the choices were good ones - whatever that means - but they are mostly guesses. When I see that I am not happy with a choice, I do the best I can to reverse or revise it, if that is possible.
