We always want better, better is very rarely in comparison to one has had,  it is usually peers- with whom we compare. So i said somewhere that brightness doesn’t come from peers, but it seems it is intrinsic at a certain level, ie the choices that we have to make involve constant comparisons, evaluations, how much biased our choices are is a matter of issue, but the intrinsic nature itself is attributed to more illogical adoption than a rational one. A very simple example– people wanting to be rich without even thinking about why they would want to be so. I doubt if its as simple as needing a warm sweater in cold conditions, or is it not?

Will there be less bias if we do evaluation/comparison without any external inputs(i assume that we reach a decision after comparing among all the best possibilities, always), No, not always, we do need data, what kind of data is already in the system will influence the decision making a lot. We insist on generating copies of data we had, we don’t usually believe that people can figure out better on there own, that is where most of the biases are born.

We do have propensity towards mysterious and secret things, we always want to unveil the mysteries and secrets. Into youth, we are always intrigued by sex, and then it gets regular stuff for all of us. But there’s so much of forbidden quality attached to it that we want to know it and we want to do it. It seems to be a mix of natural as well situational bias. But most of the other biases will be situational and will be learned more than already known. We always care less about knowing things which are accessible to everybody, isn’t it? Science is accessible to everybody, information is freely available, atleast now with the advent of internet, but i don’t think many people find science to be interesting and mysterious, because it is freely available. One wouldn’t probably want to study business and apply science to it, one would rather prefer to go to a top B school, because one thinks there’s something taught there which will change their lives, isn’t the case, we probably lose out, because of bias. From where do such biases arise?– Information, data, standards, simply put- Biases.

Will being selective lead to better choices? Asking the obvious, aint I? Less is more, usually used in the field of design, now that’s a good place to start according to me. Less, i.e. simple, and closer to less will mean closer to accurate and more later. We can be as selective as we want to, but if we are open to selection, chances are that we will ready to drop our choices even after being convinced to chose them. Simply put, we will will filtering more often than we usually do, leaving lot of biases on the way, no longer giving value to expensive things, just because they are expensive, we will not become totally utilitarian also, cause we know that itself is a bias sometimes which doesn’t work in emotional situations.

If you put a two-year-old boy in a room with two toys, one toy in the open and the other behind a Plexiglas wall, the two-year-old will ignore the easily accessible toy and go after the apparently forbidden one.  If the wall is low enough to be easily climbable, the toddler is no more likely to go after one toy than the other.  (Brehm and Weintraub 1977.)

There was time in history when distinction between life and death was very blurred, people believed that something immediately follows life, or there is something after death(heaven or hell), must have been a tremendous mystery which must have got lot of people going for unraveling the mystery. It seems biases will be less if we assume less and think more about everything as a mystery/unknown thing.