The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts

He sought testimonials from doctors about the health value of smoking after a meal. He combined this approach with …altering the very environment, striving to create a world in which the cigarette was ubiquitous. He mounted a campaign to persuade hotels and restaurants to add cigarettes to dessert-list menus, and he provided such magazines as House

The more extreme events that are possible, the longer the tails of the curve get.

Conditional probability is similar to Bayesian thinking in practice, but comes at it from a different angle. When you use historical events to predict the future, you have to be mindful of the conditions that surrounded that event. Events can be independent, like tossing a coin, or dependent. In the latter case, it means the outcomes of an event ar

«As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.»

«We shall be unable to turn natural advantage to account unless we make use of local guides.» Sun Tzu

Our lack of perfect information about the world gives rise to all of probability theory, and its usefulness.

Thought experiments can be defined as “devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things.”

Karl Popper wrote “A theory is part of empirical science if and only if it conflicts with possible experiences

They are, by definition, reductions of something far more complex. There is always at least an element of subjectivity, and we need to remember that they are created at particular moments in time.