Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
other and to communicate about plans and perceived dangers. It is
easier to watch others acting in a dangerous environment and to
understand the dangers theyareinthantowatchone
s own position
and the dangers involved in that position. It is also harder to see a
loved one dying compared to seeing yourself die, so we are emotion-
ally involved in taking care of the other. Our competence in estimat-
ing the amount of danger someone is in is much more strongly
developed than the competence to estimate our own danger.
Connected to this, is it also easier to estimate the safety behavior of
others than our own safety behavior. These two processes are orga-
nized in a completely different way in the brain. Feedback can fill
this gap between the two perspectives.
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There is still another aspect that we learned during that period,
which is relevant to risk management today. Hunters always had to
face the fact that food supply could be very unstable. To compensate
for the risk of periods of food shortage, the brain learned to consider
serious risks while planning behavior and to compensate for possible
failures in the plan: the origin of safety margins. If the average food
consumption of 2,500 kilocalories a day is sufficient, the brain will
ask for 2,800 kilocalories, in this way saving some fat (a physical
safety margin) for periods in which no food is available. We can recog-
nize similar compensating processes in other areas of life. If having
three children was considered enough to safeguard survival posterity,
the programming was to produce eight so that at least three of them
would survive. Clever men build in safety margins to compensate for
possible setbacks. In everything we do, we build in safety margins.
The brain is fully designed for avoiding risks. It regards risks as a normal
aspect of life and anticipates on them.
In the example of driving a car, managing safety boundaries is one
of the most crucial competences of a good driver. On the road, we
meet hundreds of other drivers who all have their own driving habits.
We constantly have to manage the distance between our own car and
the cars around us, with a minimum depending on the speed and the
circumstances of the road. The perfect distance allows us to reduce the
speed of our own car safely, even if the car in front has to break
quickly. As soon as you see children playing with a ball, you take into
