The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts

The quality of our thinking is largely influenced by the mental models in our heads. While we want accurate models, we also want a wide variety of models to uncover what’s really happening. The key here is variety. Most of us study something specific and don’t get exposure to the big ideas of other disciplines. We don’t develop the multidisciplinar

The important thing is not to sit down and imagine every possible scenario in the tail (by definition, it is impossible) but to deal with fat-tailed domains in the correct way: by positioning ourselves to survive or even benefit from the wildly unpredictable future, by being the only ones thinking correctly and planning for a world we don’t fully u

Out of 100,000 game scenarios, Allen probably only wins in the few where LeBron starts the game by having a deadly heart attack. Experimenting to discover the full spectrum of possible outcomes gives you a better appreciation for what you can influence and what you can reasonably expect to happen.

The biggest barrier to learning from contact with reality is ourselves. It’s hard to understand a system that we are part of because we have blind spots, where we can’t see what we aren’t looking for, and don’t notice what we don’t notice.

The Five Whys is a method rooted in the behavior of children. Children instinctively think in first principles. Just like us, they want to understand what’s happening in the world. To do so, they intuitively break through the fog with a game some parents have come to dread, but which is exceptionally useful for identifying first principles: repeate

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.

Examining consequences and implications. (What if I am wrong? What are the consequences if I am?)

Sometimes called reasoning from first principles, it’s a tool to help clarify complicated problems by separating the underlying ideas or facts from any assumptions based on them. What remain are the essentials.

The majority of the time, we don’t even perceive what conflicts with our beliefs.