(I took this out of Inevitable Illusions, by Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, but it’s a well-known example) Baker and Jones are taking a cab to go to the airport. They get stuck in a traffic jam and arrive ninety minutes late. Baker’s plane left on time and Jones’s plane had a delay and left fifteen before Jones got to the airport. Now, claims Piatelli-Palmarini, Jones will feel much more regret than Baker, even though it is not rational for him to do so. Applying my own analysis to this, I suggest the following: For one thing, I have a high regard for any strategic emotion (make footnote: this is a term I coined to emphasize that we need not think of emotions as guiding us unreliably, but that it is a simple matter to take advantage of them, that in any case we need not adopt the view that either emotions are evil, irrational, and useless, or that emotions are an integral part of human nature, that they are just as valid as reason, and without which we would be inhuman and devoid of meaning in life--neither view in my mind has any sound thinking behind it) including that of regret. Notice that the emotion would make perfect sense if Jones had walked to the airport and could have hurried and been on time. I do not mean blaming oneself, holding oneself responsible, or punishing oneself. (Footnote: many students do it; I think it a better approach would include blaming the system, denying having any responsibility yourself, but I guess I’d end up writing several books if I went into ideas like that) I mean regret as a kind of reminder, that helps you avoid falling into the same trap repeatedly. I think if one eliminated all emotions that could be related to regret we’d have an extremely hard time figuring out what to take seriously and what to ignore. I think that most of our emotions can work extremely well for us; but what if they don’t, like in Jones’s example? I find that Piatelli and any other cognitive scientists that agree with him are simply wrong when they claim to have found important and inherent flaws in human thinking. They overemphasize natural tendencies of humans to think in certain ways. They see things as they are. They make countless observations and report fact by fact what they see. With the help of neuropsychologists and other specialists, they develop elaborate theories on why things are as they are. They apply mathematics. In small talk, people want to draw attention to themselves. By sheer microcompetition, if I have the opportunity to tell people about how I barely missed a plane by five minutes then surely I’d want to take advantage of that fact and tell people. If I don’t tell my friends how I drove at 125 mph on the freeway last night, they won’t pay as much attention to me... If I am bombarded with this kind of talk during my life, then I’ll start to think like that, too. Sometimes, the first time I barely miss a plane, I’ll feel sort of phony as I pretend to get upset about it, since I know very well that it couldn’t have been avoided. But the more I get used to it, it begins to feel natural and I enjoy having people pay attention to me for knowing how to lead interesting conversations, being outgoing and tolerant,...and occasionally drawing attention to myself by getting upset when I barely miss some appointment or event.