The Tragic Flaw of the Human Mind11/9/2017 In Dan Ariely's Ted Talk, entitled "Are we in Control of our own Decisions?", the speaker explains that even though human beings are able to create incredible inventions (i.e., machines, cars, houses, computers, etcetera), our brains are not as evolutionized as we lead ourselves to believe. Our brains often fail to understand that there is always something trying to influence them. This trick often takes place in the form of options we are given in all aspects of everyday life. Ariely uses the example of three different pictures of men. In the first example, the audience is asked to choose between three men - an average man, a slightly more attractive man, and an uglier (yet slightly similar) version of the more attractive man. Ariely goes onto explain that because of the slightly less attractive version of the second man being used as one of the options, we cognitively believe that we should choose the more attractive version of the second man. To build upon this, the speaker gives us the same example, except the roles are reversed; there is the average man, the more attractive man, and then a slightly uglier version of the average man. Because our mind see the slightly uglier version of the average man, we are apt to believe that the right choice is the average man, because we justify that we are getting the better of the two versions of him. Ariely's speech can be connected to tragedy through the fact that our minds are created with a natural flaw, which is the fact that we constantly allow certain options to influence decisions we make in life. This results in our brains having a tragic flaw, which relates directly to the context of tragedy that we have been discussing in class lately. Overall, this speech has changed my understanding of tragedy, because I never thought about my mind as having a tragic flaw. Yet, after having watched the Ted Talk, I now completely agree with the idea that Ariely was explaining.
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