Tags:: #🗺️ Links:: [[🏠 My Home]] # Mental Models MOC Many people tend to favor complicated solutions over simple ones. Because of this, they scoff at the need to understand the most simple [[Mental model]]s. But the most simple and time tested mental models are the most important ones to know. Because of [[The Lindy Effect]], the longer a mental model has been around, the more likely it is to be true and applicable to many situations. There are three main buckets where the most essential mental models come from. Before I discuss the most important mental models it's good to know that they constantly interact with each other. The only reason they are split is to make them easier to conceptualize and understand. "Bucket number one is inorganic systems, which are 13.7 billion years in size. It’s all the laws of math and physics, the entire physical universe. Bucket number two is organic systems, 3.5 billion years of biology on Earth. And bucket number three is human history, you can pick your own number, I picked 20,000 years of recorded human behavior." - Peter Kaufman # The Major Mental Models ### General Highest Leverage Mental Models - [[The Map is Not the Territory]] - [[Circle of Competence]] - [[Falsifiability]] - [[First Principles Thinking]] - [[Second Order Thinking]] - [[Thought Experiment]] - [[Probabilistic thinking]] - [[Inversion]] - [[Occam's Razor]] - [[Hanlon's Razor]] ### Physics Mental Models - [[Relativity]] Chemistry Mental Models - [[Alloys]] ### Biology Mental Models - [[Evolution]] - [[The Red Queen Hypothesis]] - [[Niches]] - [[Replication]] ### Systems Thinking Mental Models - [[Antifragile]] - [[Feedback loops]] - [[Equilibrium]] - [[Bottlenecks]] - [[Scaling]] - [[Emergence]] - [[The law of diminishing returns]] ### Mathematics Mental Models - [[Sampling]] - [[Regression toward the mean]] - [[Pareto Principle]] - [[Compounding effect]] - [[Global and local maxima]] ## Related MOCs ```dataview list from #🗺️ and [[]] and !outgoing([[]]) sort file.mtime desc ``` ## Related Concepts ```dataview table Status from [[]] and !outgoing([[]]) and !#🗺️ sort file.mtime desc ``` ### 🗺️[[The Map is Not the Territory]] A map of reality is not reality. It's a summary. It's a reduction of what is. Three important things to realize when using a map: 1. Reality is the ultimate update. A map was made at a certain time, so if reality goes against the map you should consider updating your map to reflect that. Life is an infinite game so no map is set in stone. This reminds me of how [[Notemaking is an iterative process]]. 2. Consider the cartographer. Maps are made by people who have [[Emotions MOC]], [[Heuristics]], cognitive biases, and incentives. Therefore you should always consider who made a map before integrating it into your thinking. 3. Maps can affect reality. Consider a map that details a city plan which in turn affects the way the rest of the city works after the plan is enacted. ### ⭕[[Circle of Competence]] Your circle of competence represents the areas in which you are competent in. This is important to understand because we don't know what we don't know and suffer from the [[Dunning Kruger Effect]] unconsciously. It's essential you know your strengths, play to them, and recognize when you are operating outside of them. Three main things you must do to build a circle of competence: 1. A desire, curiosity, and willingness to learn. 2. Monitoring. Logging how you are progressing in your building of competence in an area. 3. Feedback. Creating [[Feedback loops]] that help you iterate and improve your process. One of the best ways to start building competence in an area you have never built it in is to talk to people already competent in that area. Ask who not how. ###### [[Falsifiability]] Karl Popper wrote “A theory is part of empirical science if and only if it conflicts with possible experiences13 and is therefore in principle falsifiable by experience.” If you can’t prove something wrong, you can’t really prove it right either. According to popper there were only two types of theories: 1. Theories that are known to be wrong, as they were tested and adequately rejected (he calls them falsified). 2. Theories that have not yet been known to be wrong, not falsified yet, but are exposed to be proved wrong. Why is a theory never right? Because we will never know if all the swans are white. [[Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence]]. ### 🧱[[First Principles Thinking]] Everything that is not a law of nature is just a shared belief, a cultural [[Memes|meme]]. This is why when thinking about a complicated problem, it can often be helpful to separate the underlying facts and ideas from any assumptions based off of them. What's left is the concreate principles that make up the problem which you can build your thinking around. This way of thinking goes back all the way to the time of the Ancient Greeks and the first philosophers. The best philosophers define first principles of human nature and build the rest of their theories off of them. The first principles of a problem will change based on the background you are coming at it with. If you're an electrical engineer, your first principles toward a problem will often include Newton's three laws of physics and electrical laws. But if you're a biologist, your first principles more often might include natural selection. ### 💡[[Thought Experiment]] A thought experiment involves running through a scenario in your mind to investigate the nature of things. [[Imaging something makes it seem more likely]] because it [[The distance something is from us in psychological distance changes our construal of it]] by making us think of it more abstractly. However, by imagining it in our minds, we decrease the distance it feels from us. Thought experiments are run exactly like normal scientific experiments using [[The Scientific Method]]. One famous example of a thought experiment is John Rawl's "Veil of Ignorance" which states that in order to figure out the most fair and equitable way to structure society you have to construct it being ignorant to where you will be placed inside of the society. This doesn't just apply to society, but to determining the most fair decision-making process in a group. You have to be okay with the decision making method chosen allowing any decision to be made before undergoing it. ### 🦋[[Second Order Thinking]] Second order thinking involves thinking about how our immediate actions have effects on future actions and effects by thinking holistically. Trust and trustworthiness in relationships come from multiple interactions with someone which is why I believe it's so important to play life like an [[Infinite Prisoners Dilemma]]. While second order thinking can be helpful in getting us to do hard things in the moment to benefit from the [[Compounding effect]] later on, it can lead to [[Analysis paralysis]] if taken to seriously. We can't always calculate the best decision using second order effects. Some decisions will have a almost perfect balance of negatives to positives to either side. You should [[Pick randomly when you are in the zone of indifference for a decision]]. This way you can spend your time working on more important things. ### 📊[[Probabilistic thinking]] Probabilistic thinking involves using the probability of events to inform our thinking with [[Decision Making MOC]]. This type of thinking is incredibly useful because [[Humans are terrible at thinking statistically]]. We naturally simplify the world so that our brain doesn't have to work as hard and we can make decisions faster. The most common way to do this is [[Subscribe to the base rate to fight against our statistical ineptitude|using what statisticians call a base rate]], or the probability of something based on the past. It's important to understand that the chance of historical probabilities being accurate are in themselves probabilities because reality constantly changes. In addition, the base rates we use will be based on our own knowledge of the world, which means they will suffer from the [[Hidden data problem]]. ###### Bayesian Probability Thinking Bayesian probability attempts to account for this fact by assessing probability of something based on our past knowledge while also being willing to iterate past probability assessments through intake of new knowledge. We can do this ourselves through adopting two philosophies: 1. Never take a risk that can completely do you in. 2. Be constantly curious and willing to learn. ###### [[Antifragile]] [[Antifragile|Antifragile]] refers to a system that gains from disorder. I discuss more about this in my [[How I Profit From Randomness Antifragile Book Summary]] by Nassim Taleb. But by making yourself antifragile, you can benefit from the impossibility of predicting the future. ###### Fat Tailed Curves Fat tailed curves are like [[Normal distributions]] except the probabilities on the extremes never curve off. There are tons of things in life that have fat tailed curves which create for [[Black swans]]. ###### Correlation Doesn't Mean Causation [[Correlation doesn't mean causation]]. The only way to prove something has causality for something else is through an [[Experimental Study Design|experimental study]]. ###### [[Regression toward the mean]] Many people make the [[Regression fallacy]] by failing to understand that outliers are likely to regress to the mean over time simply due to the nature of the mean. ### 🔙[[Inversion]] Inversion is a thinking tool which works by approaching a situation at the opposite end of the natural starting point. It runs off the idea that avoiding stupidity is often better than striving for brilliance. For example, in business it's often used to figure out the blockers to a project by conducting a [[Premortem]]. A premortem is done by theorizing about all the things that could go wrong in trying to do a project before doing it. There are two main ways to using this thinking in life. Start by assuming whatever you are trying to prove is true or false and then think backwards about what else would have to be true for that to work out. ### 🪒[[Occam's Razor]] Occam's Razor states that the simplest explanation for an occurrence is probably the most likely one. The world is notoriously complicated, and therefore the more pieces have to move together for a conclusion to be true, the less likely the conclusion is true. And yet ironically we often spend time creating elaborate reasonings and narratives for certain events. Occam's razor is useful for disproving miracles because by definition miracles are things that happen which go outside our normal understanding of the way the world works. This means anybody who talks about the occurrence of a miracle is probably describing the event wrong (Rip all of [[Religion MOC|reigion]]). ### 🦥[[Hanlon's Razor]] Hanlon's Razor states that we should not attribute to malice what is more likely due to stupidity, laziness, or ignorance. Of all possible motives, the one that requires the least possible effort to execute is the most likely. I believe the reason we tend to attribute malice intent from other people that do negative things to us is because we make the [[Fundamental attribution error]]. This causes us to seek out information which shows malice intent because of [[Confirmation bias]] which subsequently makes us see malice intent where there is none. We put too much weight on the information that we have readily available because of the [[Availability heuristic]] and [[Feature positive effect]] causing us to suffer from the [[Hidden data problem]] and make conclusions that we wouldn't if we had more data. Also, assuming that your at the center of everyone's intent for things is so self-centered. Stop being a child. This is why I don't like the quote "stupidity is the same thing as evil if you judge by the results" - Margaret Atwood. Obviously, there is a large difference between doing something with intent or without. This is why there is a difference between first, second, and third degree murder. ## Physics ### 🌌[[Relativity]] Relativity from physics shows us how everything is relative to everything else. This doesn't just apply to time but to people as well. We see things differently based on our unique perspective. We see things differently if we are zoomed out compared to if we are zoomed in. ### Relativity Simply Explained Imagine two rocket ships are speeding toward a third rocket ship going at the speed of light. One of the two rocket ships is going 50% the speed of light and the other is going 99% the speech of light. From the perspective of the rocket ship going the speed of light, which of these rocket ships is going faster? Common sense would say the rocket ship going 99% the speed of light. But this is wrong. This is the revelation [[Albert Einstein]] had with his theory of relativity. No two things in the universe share the same reality. Rather than being a fixed state reality is an infinite number of unique realities depending on where you are and how fast you are moving. Let's apply this to the rocket ship analogy used earlier. To the ship going at the speed of light, the to rocket ships will look like they are standing in place. This is because the light from the ships isn't able to catch up to the rocket ship going the speed of light. Therefore, it looks like they are standing in place. To the rocket ship going 50% the speed of light it will seem as if it's slowing down in comparison to the other two ships, but this is only to it's perspective. ## Biology ### 🐒[[Evolution]] Evolution is a key mental model in Biology that describes the dynamical process through which genes adapt from changing constraints in an environment to better [[Replication|replicate]]. Evolution applies not only to biology but also to all sorts of areas inside of life. Evolution can happen slowly in most cases of natural selection or incredibly quickly either through rapid environmental changes or through artificial selection. **For example, one of humans main paths to success was by speeding natural selection up through becoming incredible learners.** > [!warning] Biggest misconception about evolution > Evolution doesn't always lead to changes that are good for the individual or group. [[Behavioral contagion can lead to negativity for the group as a whole]]. > We can see the traces of natural selection, a slow and imperfect process, in vestigial structures. At the same time, sometimes a trait is so important for a environment that two species evolve it separately living in different environments entirely. This is called convergent evolution. ### The Red Queen Effect In a rapidly changing [[Ecosystem]], stagnation is death. [[The Red Queen Hypothesis]] is an evolutionary concept that argues that organisms must constantly adapt and evolve in order to survive, just like the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland story. ### 🫙[[Niches]] The ecological niche of a species refers to the role it plays in the ecosystem in which it is found. Every species in an ecosystem has a niche. A species’ niche includes everything that affects its ability to reproduce and survive. There are two strategies when it comes to niches: - Generalists - Specialists Generalists don't specialize in one particular skill to survive but rather learn to use a variety of skills in their one environment. Specialists specialize in one skill and get really really good at that. **Generalists do better in environments with lots of change where as specialists thrive in environments that don't change that much. This makes generalists [[Antifragile]].** This reminds me of niching inside of content creation. Ali Abdaal believes there are two niching strategies we can use in content creation: 1. Archaeologists 2. Architects Archaeologists figure out their niche over time by testing out and trying things over time. Architects create a niche from the get go and than get started creating. ### 🧬[[Replication]] Replication is a major mental model from biology that states the genes that survive in a ecosystem are those that are repeatable. This applies not only to genes but also to [[Memes]] as well, a key idea from [[The Selfish Gene]]. However, a big misconception people have is that what's good for the individuals replication is good for the group. Often times what is great for the individual is not great for the groups replication. [[Behavioral contagion can lead to negativity for the group as a whole]]. > [!question] How can we make our content more replicable? > As a content creator I'm interested in how I can make my content more replicable. One of the best books I have read on how to do this is [[Made to Stick]]. In the book, the authors share the [[SUCCESs framework]] for making ideas more replicable. Related: ___ # Resources [[The Great Mental Models]]