It's Just Like Riding a Bike

A few thoughts on perception, decision making, and action.  

Knowledge and Knowing.  

Knowing and Acting.


A few weeks ago, I sat down to chat with Ian McCammon at a coffee shop.  Ian has been a driving force in helping us better understand avalanche mechanics and behavioural science as it relates to decision making in avalanche terrain.  This is a guy with a PhD in robotics helping humans make better decisions.  But I digress.  

We were talking about how many of us intellectually "know" where the avalanche danger is....and yet we find ourselves there anyway.  We start off with good intentions...and then we capital D Drift.  My good friend Doug Workman talks about how people go into the bordello "just for a drink."

Years ago, when I lived in northern Japan, I had this, well, handler.  Stacy was one of the smartest and funniest people I ever met.  For the first month, we were inseparable.  It was his job, you see.  He'd have me drive his car and of course in Japan, they drive on the 'wrong' side of the road - the steering wheel being on the right side.  A few weeks went by and one day we're walking back to his car.  I'm looking at him and he gives me this sort of "head-fake".  And I find myself on the left side of the car, peering in at the passenger seat. I look up and there's Stacy with this shit-eating grin.  

I "knew" that the driver's side was on the right hand side, and yet I found myself on the left hand side.  
 

Habits, expertise, recognition-primed decision making.  

Isn't it said that one of the hallmarks of the Expert is that - in certain situations - she knows she is not the expert anymore.  

After coffee, Ian sent me this video of a man, uh, learning how to ride a bike.