The Origins of Predictable Mistakes
Marie-Élisabeth Deschamps
Knowledge
Dawson College

Since the human race exists, the world has gone through various phases. In each one, new discoveries led to life adjustments. The origination of fire, for example, gave birth to multiple purposes, some of which were to heat habitations, cook or add light to the darkness. Therefore, it is important to understand that new discoveries incited changes and established new necessities. However, those changes occurred over a long period of time, and that constrains human from the modern world to still be influenced by our ancient ancestors’ mentality. In fact, no matter if we want it or not, the way our brains work is partly by listening to a latent caveman’s voice. But facing the fact that society evolved since then, it is probable that what the caveman’s voice says does not suit the modern mentality. That being said, I have to agree that the way the human brain evolved is an inevitable factor that leads today’s humans to make poor decisions and choices. In order to explain more deeply my opinion, I will study more closely three different factors, which lead us to make predictable mistakes: I will go through the idea that our minds are strongly influenced by memory, that the human brain tends to think in relative terms and finally, that our ancestral mentality pushes us to give more importance to the present than the future. As you will see, all of these aspects of the human mind are the consequences of the strong influence of our past. Decisions derive from mental debates. Often, a whole range of options appears to us, and our duty is to select which one is likely to suit our needs. However, the tricky part is that mental debates have a lot of chances to be influenced by things such as our memory. In fact, memory is partly what gives a meaning to our existence, and therefore, it has a lot of power on us. Perhaps, the world of advertising constantly refers to memory in order