
Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained) - cpeterso
https://www.fs.blog/mental-models/
======
tim333
Vaguely related I've found Yuval Harari's stuff interesting
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13905249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13905249))

The

>You told the Guardian that without meditation, you'd still be researching
medieval military history — but not the Neanderthals or cyborgs. What changes
has meditation brought to your work as a historian?

> ... the entire exercise ... is to learn the difference between fiction and
> reality, what is real and what is just stories that we invent and construct
> in our own minds. Almost 99 percent you realize is just stories in our
> minds. This is also true of history. Most people, they just get overwhelmed
> by the religious stories, by the nationalist stories, by the economic
> stories of the day, and they take these stories to be the reality.

bit

~~~
perseusprime11
To understand meditation, one has to understand how our brain works. Once you
fully understand the brain, it's a no-brainer to meditate regularly. If you
are game, I recommend everyone read the Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan
Haidt.

~~~
falcolas
> To understand meditation, one has to understand how our brain works.

I'm fairly sure we're still decades if not centuries away from this. We barely
understand the broadest strokes of the brain, and can only really treat its
deficiencies by bathing the entire thing in chemicals.

~~~
perseusprime11
I did not mean from a comprehensive understanding but there are things we can
understand such as left vs. right brain, role of our limbic system, role of
emotion when it comes to reason and decision making, etc. These concepts will
give us a window into how our brains work and the need to train it using
techniques such as meditation. Sorry, I was cryptic in my earlier comment.

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Tycho
Good list. A few other good concepts to know:

    
    
      + minority rule
      + signalling theory
      + hypergamy
      + purity spirals
      + sexual selection
      + iceberg principle 
      + principal component
      + emperor has no clothes (shared vs common knowledge)
      + Hajnal line
      + trapdoor function
      + invisible hand
      + information hiding (encapsulation)
      + loose coupling
      + iatrogenics 
      + ergodicity
      + entropy
      + unbundling (see pmarca’s tweets)

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Mandatum
If you'd like to read more on the subject, I can recommend this article put
together by Slava Akhmechet at Stripe, creator of RethinkDB.

[https://www.defmacro.org/2016/12/22/models.html](https://www.defmacro.org/2016/12/22/models.html)

~~~
spodek
I recommend my book, "ReModel: Create mental models to improve your life and
lead simply and effectively"
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F2RS1G6](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F2RS1G6),
which gives you an exercise to write out your mental models so you can both
learn from experience about models and how they work, and identify the main
models you use in your life. There's a free excerpt here:
[http://joshuaspodek.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/ReModel_b...](http://joshuaspodek.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/ReModel_by_Joshua_Spodek_excerpt.pdf)

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yigitdemirag
I wonder what could be added to this list from models explained in Eliezer
Yudkowsky's Rationality: From AI to Zombies book (which is available online:
[https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-
zombies/](https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/))

PS: Created an OPML file for 113 models with explanations:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/ba4zvf626zpqz57/mental%20models.op...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/ba4zvf626zpqz57/mental%20models.opml?dl=0)

~~~
Infernal
Do you (or anyone else) have recommendations for applications to view OPML
files on macOS?

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pps43
Some of those are simply wrong.

For example, the section on power law says "The central limit theorem does not
apply and there is thus no 'average' earthquake. This is true of all power-law
distributions." But power laws with power -k have a well-defined mean if k>2,
and finite variance if k>3.

The section on feedback loops implies that runaway is only possible with
positive feedback, and that loops with negative feedback are stable.

Others are mutually exclusive. Tendency to stereotype is bad, but Bayesian
method is good. Clearly both can't be right, and no rule is given to
differentiate between those cases.

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the_greyd
> Most rational people.. one of the finest thinkers in the world..

Is this advice coming from a professor/scientist/philosopher? No, they are the
investors who make the most money. In a neo-liberal society, the richest
people get the intellectual authority to tell us how to make intelligent
decisions. Incredible! /s

~~~
d0lph
This is basically an ad hominem attack.

~~~
the_greyd
Allow me to change your view. What irks me are sentences like these

> The great investor and teacher Benjamin Graham..

> Smart people like Charlie Munger..

> Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the finest thinkers in the
> world..

There is no mention in the article as to why I should believe they are as
smart as the author believes them to be. (Hint: They made a lot of money and
their advice seems rational, so they should be smart?). No doubt they are
great investors (they made a lot of money), and I would follow their advice in
money matters. But I question their credibility as extraordinary thinkers.

Notice how this type of content is marketed and perceived. Specifically, any
advice by investors/CEO/Entrepreneur (or other individuals whose primary
experience has been in making money/increasing market value) being touted as
general success mantras (including in your personal life). Principles by Ray
Dalio being a recent example. And as I mentioned, I believe this is a product
of the neo-liberal ideology that has taken over our society.

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thisisit
Does anyone follow the mental model way of thinking? I am curious how do
people apply so many models in their daily life. It is possible to add couple
of models like Hanlon's razor etc but 100+ seems too many.

~~~
vrp101
I doubt event the author incorporates all 100+ models in their every day life,
but I don't believe that is the point.

These models provide some kind of an insight into some of the underlying
concepts of different domains. Some of models are generic enough to have a
very wide range of applications (ex: Hanlon's razor). While others are a bit
too specific (ex: Fat-Tailed Processes).

The common thread across all models is that once you understand them, you have
an access to a new vocabulary which can be used in almost any domain (ex: The
military mental model of Asymmetric Warfare in the domain of business. In
general, if you are a business person I suspect you are going to find almost
all of Military/War mental models extremely useful).

The important point is to understand this metaphorical method of thinking, of
how different things can be connected through abstractions, and then generate
insights based on that. Once you start doing that, you'll accumulate a lot of
different mental models without even realizing it. Almost everyone already
uses mental models. Doing it consciously makes you that much better at it. :)

------
insomniacity
A related course on the topic: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/model-
thinking](https://www.coursera.org/learn/model-thinking)

I found it very interesting.

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indescions_2018
Love this. But am irked by how incomplete these models seem. "First
Principles", "Probabilistic Thinking". Both seek to formalize causality in
events.

Would speculate Buffet, Munger, et al don't actually bother much with cause
and effect when entering large positions. They look at trends, price-action,
cash flow and other mathematical micro-economic indicators. As well as a bias
on the long term survivability of betting on America as a macro whole.

Michael Abrash, now Oculus Chief Scientist, has this great definition of "Zen
Optimizations" in his famous graphics programming black books. There is the
way a thing is advertised to work. There is the way you believe it to work.
And then there is the way it actually works!

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tw1010
In psychology there's this concept called _body mirroring_. Monkeys do it, as
does humans. It's the idea that the subordinate ape tends to mirror the
posture of the dominant one. Mental models are obviously a useful tool, but I
always found it funny that people who write posts about it keep reusing the
phrase "latticework", as if it has any useful meaning, instead of just
removing it to make the content more concise. I think of it as a linguistic
version of body mirroring.

~~~
MarkMc
I disagree with the idea that 'latticework' has no useful meaning. Here's the
way Munger uses the term:

 _You 've got to have models in your head. And you've got to array your
experience both vicarious and direct on this latticework of models. You may
have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is
remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You've got to hang
experience on a latticework of models in your head._

To me, 'latticework of models' onto which one hooks examples and personal
experience is a rather neat analogy.

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dontwantai
I can't recall a joke about a President looking for an economist with only one
hand. In economic forecasting there are mental models of the type: On the one
hand, ... On the other hand. Polya how to solve list many ways to develop
useful math analogies, but it seems that end result is not very satisfactory.
I think that to make an intelligent decision you have to feel deeply involved
in the subject, then some kind of unconcious force do wonders, it seems you
can benefit learning or focussing in certain patterns, but I think that deep
is better than breast. Also there is the theory of the hedgehog versus the fox
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox)

~~~
bordercases
Which is a model.

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bordercases
Not enough mathematics. A substantial chunk of these are derived by analogy
from analytical domains which are kind of on the fringe between pure math and
applied math, like game theory and financial theory. There, the models and
their primitives being described are part of a more coherent body of knowledge
that lets you apply the concept precisely.

I'm going to get a reply that "oh but reading this Farnam Street stuff helps
build intuition" and you might very well be right, but this knowledge is only
developed to its fullest extent when it's precise and considered deductively.
Taking a microecon course made it difficult for me to stop seeing microecon
for at least a year. Freakonomics wouldn't have been technical enough.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
I don't think I agree. At least in most cases. It might be important to learn
the math in order for the models to make sense, but once you learn the model
you don't need the math. For example, most circuit designers don't use any
math (other than simple arithmetic and algebra) when designing circuits
because they have heuristics that allow them not to think about the math. In
that case, thinking about the math just gets you bogged down in the details.

------
adamsmith
This is great! I try to keep track of such lists, and this is the best I've
seen so far.

I put up a Mediawiki instance five years ago (wikilogic.org) to publish my own
list, but didn't follow through. Interestingly I put a FS link in the bottom
right : )

A couple of tweaks I would make:

\- Putting 'Inversion' at the top--I think it #1 in terms of underuse.

\- Aside from Occam, Bayes, Pareto, Dunbar, and Pavlov, I would drop all
models named after people. The chances of someone remembering something are
much better if they don't need to learn a name in conjunction! (e.g. see the
other comment about the difficulty of learning "Hanlon's Razor")

To take this material to the next level, I imagine the next step is to build
case studies.

~~~
andreareina
Naming things is hard. To drop the person's name from the model you'd ideally
have a replacement that is both concise and expressive; a concise name allows
us to effectively talk about the model itself, which is also important. Often,
where such a phrase exists it's already used as an alternative:

* Occam's Razor: Law of Parsimony

* Pareto Principle: 80/20 Rule

* Hanlon's Razor: arguably an extension of the Principle of Charity

I do agree that moving away from the people names would be a benefit if (and
maybe only if) we can find a similarly concise replacement.

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daniel_iversen
This is a good little book on a selection of decision models to have with you
sometimes for inspiration and remembering: [https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-
au/books/mikael-krogerus/the...](https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-
au/books/mikael-krogerus/the-decision-book-fifty-models-for-strategic-
thinking-the-tschappeler-and-
kroger/GOR002766082?gclid=Cj0KCQjw3InYBRCLARIsAG6bfMTvLOFT-
clQM1OXcO4ikBYazFyTd09BhWoqAZM1eoYKG-dyTsLGvokaAiHyEALw_wcB)

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zby
I like the idea that mental models are the most condensed form of knowledge.
But I don't quite agree with the premise that there is some universal list
that will be equally useful for everyone. Investors like Charlie Munger need
to have a very broad knowledge - because they need to analyse all kinds of
businesses - but for other peoples a list concentrating more on their field of
work would be more useful.

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alienjr
One of the best blogs on learning and life wisdom.

~~~
Scea91
His newsletter is actually the only newsletter that I get weekly and skim it
regularly.

I agree with other commenters that sometimes the material is weak and more
like "Do these 5 things that successful people (bankers, investors,
entrepreneurs) do and be also succesful" but generally there is quality
content on this blog.

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alexpetralia
I write a biweekly newsletter about mental models in case anyone is
interested:
[https://alexpetralia.github.io/newsletters](https://alexpetralia.github.io/newsletters)

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nazgulnarsil
more structure
[http://conceptspace.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Lists_of_Concepts...](http://conceptspace.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Lists_of_Concepts?li_source=LI&li_medium=wikia-
footer-wiki-rec)

