When you already know the answer
&gt; If I asked person X for advice, what would they say?<p>This reveals a key characteristic of the homo sapien brain vis a vis other mammals.<p>Humans have a very large neocortex.  Its primary functionality is to hold a database of a few hundred people, organised in bands of social closeness.<p>Your inner circle might be only a few people, but you know them well and you can predict what they would say about most things.<p>Your village is about 150 people, including your co-workers, the merchants who sell you things most days, the bus driver, and the people in your street.  You know them well, at some superficial level, but its enough to be able to predict what they&#x27;ll say, more or less, whenever your paths cross.<p>And then there&#x27;s your boss, and the local cop, and your mayor, and your governor.  You can predict what they&#x27;ll say in certain situations, and that&#x27;s exactly why you don&#x27;t always speed when you&#x27;re driving, because you carry the cop around in your head.<p>You are always consulting with this village of people in your head.  They prescribe a lot of your behaviour.  Somewhere deep inside of you are your own instincts and urges, but by the time you allow them to be expressed as behaviour, you&#x27;ve filtered them by consulting all the people in your head about what you should or shouldn&#x27;t do or say.