Bias, Blindness and How We Truly Think (Part 4): Daniel Kahneman

Early in the days of my work on the measurement of experience, I saw Verdi’s opera “La Traviata.” Known for its gorgeous music, it is also a moving story of the love between a young aristocrat and Violetta, a woman of the demimonde.

The young man’s father approaches Violetta and persuades her to give up her lover, to protect the honor of the family and the marriage prospects of the young man’s sister. In an act of supreme self-sacrifice, Violetta pretends to reject the man she adores. She soon relapses into consumption (tuberculosis). In the final act, she lies dying, though her beloved is rushing to Paris to see her. Hearing the news, she is transformed with hope and joy, but she is also deteriorating quickly.