Decision Makers

We arrive, finally, at the part of the album that refers to the process that all human beings go through - making a decision: depending on the importance/seriousness of the situation - I believe that nobody wants to go through the process being in doubt, or worse, regretting it of the chosen hypothesis. To understand the process from a scientific perspective regarding its 'modus operandi' I will first, refer to the corresponding, biological mechanisms. There are three theories that personify structures related to decision-making that use heuristics as a cognitive procedure, providing a more realistic structure of decision-making processes: first, the rational theories of the XVII century began to see man as a rational being - due to the ideals of demonstrating knowledge - to be replaced by the calculation of mathematical probability - denoting that man has superintelligence and unlimited and coherent cognitive capacity. A fundamental premise of this theory is the idea that the rational decision maker should always maximize his potential gains (utility) and minimize his potential losses (disutility). Second, non-rational theories have been proposed as an alternative to the rigid decision-making model of rational theories; in a more natural and real perspective, the decision maker has limited time, knowledge and attention and therefore the cognitive process of searching for information is short, greatly influencing his decisions - on the other hand the limitations of the human mind, the environment that surrounds us, what is called ecological rationality, defined by its integration with reality, also influence the decisions we make. It is essential that there is a "match" between the structure of the environment and the heuristic choice that is used to resolve the uncertainty of the decision. By definition, all decision-making makes use of the nervous system, central and peripheral, depending on extrinsic factors: importance, speed, side effects, gains and losses, guarantee of security (fight or flight decision), consequences in the medium-long term, which the decision maker has to analyze. For better understanding, a decision involves action, therefore, the central nervous system transmits signals between the differences of actions, voluntary or involuntary. Third, the polyvagal theory which was developed by Stephen Porges in 1994. This theory makes specific reference to the autonomic nervous system and its connection and influence with human behavior. The autonomic nervous system is divided into two, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic refers to mobilization, preparing the organism to go into action. The parasympathetic has the function of calming the organism, of relaxing, resting. Stephen Porges notes that the tenth cranial nerve, the vagus nerve, branched into two branches; maintains that the sympathetic nervous system prepares the organism for action, movement: however it adds a branch, specific, in the parasympathetic system, dividing it, again, in two and assigning them different functions; ventral (responsible for rest, relaxation, digestion, calming down and the all-important function of social interaction) and dorsal (responsible for the immobilization response [like fake death; in some extreme cases]). This transformation has occurred in part because of the emergence of the limbic system and the fact that we have come to live in groups; urban life introduces the need for a new way of relating and cooperating, which will have led to the adaptation of the vagus nerve and its branching into two distinct systems: the ventral responsible for the mechanism of social interaction, essential for survival - in the days of today; therefore, the polyvagal theory considers that it is not a question of balance but of the existence of a specific hierarchy in the response to a stimulus.