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A large part of the neuroeconomic research field is the study of human irrationality. It can be argued that our propensity for irrationality leads to many of the problems of our modern society (but I won’t go into the details at this present time). Now I will present I personal example for your amusement.

At the recent large neuroscience conference (SFN: Nov 15-19, 2008) I was offered a new post-doc position with a 50% pay increase! The new post-doc offered a great opportunity to further examine novel neuroprotective treatments in a great and clinically relevant model, that has near unlimited opportunities for me.

I turned down the job - which is in itself highly irrational - for the obvious difference in pay, but also my current position is only funded for the next 6 months – not to mention the additional factor of the current worldwide economic conditions. What I did next though really makes me question this whole rational human thing (at least at a personal level). I then turned and made a counter offer to the principal investigator I would work for him free on part of the problem.

Now that is some negotiating strategy, going from a 50% pay increase to offering to work free for him.

How irrational, not to mention stupid is that? This is all despite my additional scientific interest of studying human irrationality (so in theory I am not ignorant of this human pension for irrationality). Maybe I should have my head scanned - I think I might know what it will find

Additionally, there are no rational reasons particularly keeping me at my current location and post-doc position.

So what I am suggesting is in your own day to day choices maybe step back once in awhile to check how rationale some of your choices are (hopefully they won’t be as irrational as my one personal example I am sharing).

Some might argue that genius can not be broken down into categories; musical, mathematical, writing, etc. However, it appears an equal number would argue that these (and more) categories exist. Sure, there are some very rare individuals that are geniuses in more than one category (though we seem to see less of these in our more complex and specialized times).

But the type of genius I am briefly discussing today is life geniuses. And this form of genius might be the most important in the terms of living and enjoying life.

Now I don’t know if anybody has thought of this category of genius - so I will give my (very rough) definition. A life genius excels at living a full throttled life with exuberance and class. The accept and search out challenges and seem to be at ease with anything that is thrown at them. They are simply living life to its fullest in a positive manner. They seem to exude energy and life.

I have been lucky enough to meet a few people that I consider life geniuses. At a neuroscience level I would love to know how their brain works - what makes them special? Do they have less fear, more capacity for love, more empathy, great resilency, greater energy?

I don’t know the answers but these people seem to live a life that most of us are envious of. They actually might be similar to the ‘Experiencers‘ I previoulsy mentioned (in regards to their spending habits). But then you have to take these experiencers and multiply exponentially to  get the life genius level. Maybe being an experincer is a prerequiste for being a life genius.

I am probably not doing a great job in explaining what a life genius is - but maybe you have met one yourself. Whatever the exact definition (even if that is possible) it would be interesting to study the makeup of these individuals - and more importantly find out how us mere mortals can ‘learn’ to become more like them (we can’t all be geniuses but we can learn and become better in any field - math, writing, music - life.

Maybe I will try to interview these lucky individuals and try to come up with some practical things the rest of us can start working on.

The long American election is finally coming to a close November 4th, 2008.

Exercise your right to vote.

Yes it is Halloween - but nothing currently is much scarier than our current economic situation. But knowledge is the best treatment for ignorance and fear.

Here is a link to a video of a very well done explanation of our economic situation and how we got there, which Juan Enriquez gave at the recent Pop! Tech meeting.

Juan Enriquez is a biologist but paticullarly excels at taking a global view of business, science and society. He is the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project , not to mention a member of Craig Venter’s team that collected genomic information from the world’s oceans.

So check out the video and get a big picture view of our economy and how we can take steps to fix it.

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