One of the things I enjoy most is exploring the overlap between different fields of thought. That curiosity is what drew me to systems thinking in graduate school. When you take a systems perspective, you begin to see how intertwined everything is. Beneath the surface of different professional jargon, all disciplines are really talking about the same thing: how to make sense of life.
As I review and revisit the content of the decision‑making course I am teaching at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, I’m having fun weaving together ideas from economics, philosophy, business, environmental science, psychology, statistics, and neuroscience. I get to dabble in storytelling, art, and AI. For me, the overlaps are what make decision making such an interesting—and very human—area of study.
When you look at all the different fields of study—mathematics, science, medicine, philosophy, psychology, history, language, and the arts—they are all fundamentally striving to define our human truth. Each discipline approaches life from its own angle and creates models of reality using its frame of reference. Mathematicians develop formulas to describe and predict behavior. Scientists formulate laws to explain what we observe. Historians assemble facts and patterns to show how we arrived where we are today. Artists use paint, clay, music, and movement to express emotion. Psychologists define standards of behavior, “normal” and “abnormal,” to explain why humans act as they do.
Decision making is different in that it isn’t unique to any one field of study. It lives inside all of them. Mathematicians must decide what to include in their formulas. Scientists decide which experiments to run. Historians decide what to document and what to leave out. Artists choose their medium and how to combine elements to express themselves. Every discipline—and every person—makes countless choices.
Making choices is fundamental to life, and shapes our reality. Every person, community, and organization faces thousands of decisions each day: what time to get up, which toothpaste to buy, how long to brush your teeth, what to eat, what to wear. We build habits and standard procedures to take the effort out of many of these decisions, conserve energy, and free ourselves to do something more creative or productive. And we’ve all had days when simply brushing our teeth and getting dressed felt like plenty.
Each decision we make is informed by many disciplines of study. The language you use to frame the question, the history you’ve observed in similar situations, your values, the social norms you’ve adopted, the neural pathways in your mind, the economic implications, the sensory experience—all of these shape your choices. Think about it: when you go to purchase a new shirt, these threads are running through your mind, consciously or unconsciously. The style reflects art. The store choice might come from habit or marketing. The decision to buy involves your personal philosophy and psychology of choice (“Do I really need a new shirt?”). The amount you’ll spend involves mathematics (“Can I afford this?”) and economics (“Is this good value for me?”).
If you stopped to consciously process all of these inputs for every decision, you’d never leave your bed. That state is sometimes called analysis paralysis. Somewhere between rote action and analysis paralysis lies effective decision making. What is effective for you may be different than what is effective for me. Each of us has our own values and priorities that drive our decisions. It turns out that being “logical” is not a singular state.
When you look at the history of decision making, you find that philosophy and mathematics have long been intimately intertwined. Think of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. These philosophers shared a pursuit of truth, and many believed mathematics could lead to that truth.
My own “ah ha” moment writing this piece was realizing that I pursued a mathematical career because I was looking for certainty. I wanted, and still sometimes wish for, a formula that would tell me what the “right” choice is. That is why AI is so enticing.
That realization leads us to psychology. Human minds are wired to prefer certainty, and that preference can distort the way we make decisions. These distortions are known as cognitive biases. They include confirmation bias—looking for data that supports what you already believe—as well as heuristics such as representativeness and anchoring. These shortcuts help us conserve processing power in our brains, but they also tend to keep us close to our existing beliefs.
The result? We create mental models that give us permission to do what we already want to do. Whether we’re happy with the result is another matter. If you’re not satisfied with the results of your decisions, it may be time to pay more attention to your decision‑making process.
That starts with taking yourself off autopilot and becoming clear about the intention behind your decision. Why do you need to act? What outcome are you working toward? How do you want to feel after you’ve acted on your choice? Your answers to these questions can make an incredible difference in the options you consider and the alternative you ultimately select.
Next time you face a decision with implications for your wellbeing, try this simple thought exercise::
Define your intention, being clear about how you want to feel.
Ask yourself which “discipline lenses” might be most interesting to consider (art, history, math, science, philosophy, psychology, etc.)
Choose one or two lenses and let them shape the options you generate (what might I do if I were a historian? painter? biologist? for example.)
When you take the time to consider a meaningful decision from multiple perspectives, you might discover something new about yourself—and about the patterns that guide your choices.
And if you’d like to explore your own mental models and biases more deeply, my decision‑making class next January will be a guided dive into the art and science of how we choose.