system 1 and 2

a lot of ways to self-improve involve using your system 2 to guide your system 1 to be better. atomic habits talks about consciously setting your environment to have less distractions, and more reminders to do good things. doing this guides you system 1 (instinct) to make better choices.

the sequences teach your system 2 to be more rational, and specificly put your system 2 in a better position to guide your system 1.

im not fully sure about my phrasing about the sequences’ effect on the systems, i might update that in a future thought.

i thought about it a little more and i think rationality teaches you system2 to better use your system 1. an example being applying bayes rule to things, you have your system 1 come up with the priors and your system 2 actually multiplies everything out