updated 12h ago
The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts
The further we are from the feedback of the decisions, the easier it is to convince ourselves that we are right and avoid the challenge, the pain, of updating our views.
from The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Navin added 4mo ago
We also tend to undervalue the elementary ideas and overvalue the complicated ones.
from The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Navin added 4mo ago
The majority of the time, we don’t even perceive what conflicts with our beliefs.
from The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Navin added 4mo ago
The further we are from the feedback of the decisions, the easier it is to convince ourselves that we are right and avoid the challenge, the pain, of updating our views.
from The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Jean-Charles Kurdali added 2mo ago
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
... See morefrom The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Jean-Charles Kurdali added 2mo ago
You’ve likely experienced this first hand. An engineer will often think in terms of systems by default. A psychologist will think in terms of incentives. A business person might think in terms of opportunity cost and risk-reward. Through their disciplines, each of these people sees part of the situation, the part of the world that makes sense to th
... See morefrom The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Jean-Charles Kurdali added 2mo ago
What happens when you take the Lifer/Stranger idea seriously and try to delineate carefully the domains in which you’re one or the other? There is no definite checklist for figuring this out, but if you don’t have at least a few years and a few failures under your belt, you cannot consider yourself competent in a circle.
from The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Jean-Charles Kurdali added 2mo ago
There is an old adage that encapsulates this: “To the man with only a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.”
from The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Jean-Charles Kurdali added 2mo ago
Why are more complicated explanations less likely to be true? Let’s work it out mathematically. Take two competing explanations, each of which seem to equally explain a given phenomenon. If one of them requires the interaction of three variables and the other the interaction of thirty variables, all of which must have occurred to arrive at the stat
... See morefrom The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
Jean-Charles Kurdali added 2mo ago