Metadata
- Author: Jason Zweig
- Full Title:: The Last Decision of Daniel Kahneman, the World’s Leading Thinker on …
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Death, Life Well Lived,
- URL:: https://archive.is/aUCco
- Read date:: 2025-03-23
Highlights
Some of Kahneman’s friends think what he did was consistent with his own research. “Right to the end, he was a lot smarter than most of us,” says Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “But I am no mind reader. My best guess is he felt he was falling apart, cognitively and physically. And he really wanted to enjoy life and expected life to become decreasingly enjoyable. I suspect he worked out a hedonic calculus of when the burdens of life would begin to outweigh the benefits—and he probably foresaw a very steep decline in his early 90s.” (View Highlight)
‘Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have thousands of people who can tell you you’re wrong?’ Danny said.” (View Highlight)
am still active, enjoying many things in life (except the daily news) and will die a happy man. But my kidneys are on their last legs, the frequency of mental lapses is increasing, and I am ninety years old. It is time to go. (View Highlight)
Kahneman knew the psychological importance of happy endings. In repeated experiments, he had demonstrated what he called the peak-end rule: Whether we remember an experience as pleasurable or painful doesn’t depend on how long it felt good or bad, but rather on the peak and ending intensity of those emotions. (View Highlight)
One possible approach: Kahneman could have gathered data to determine whether people who live to the age of 95 or beyond tend to regret not dying at the age of 90—adjusting for the difficulty of getting reliable reports from patients with dementia and other debilitating conditions. (View Highlight)
Not surprisingly, some of those who love me would have preferred for me to wait until it is obvious that my life is not worth extending. But I made my decision precisely because I wanted to avoid that state, so it had to appear premature. I am grateful to the few with whom I shared early, who all reluctantly came round to support me. (View Highlight)
Kahneman’s friend Annie Duke, a decision theorist and former professional poker player, published a book in 2022 titled “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away.” In it, she wrote, “Quitting on time will usually feel like quitting too early.” (View Highlight)