book Farnam Street The Great Mental Models

The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts

• "The quality of your thinking depends on the models in your head."
• Mental models help identify information relevant to any situation

Acquiring Wisdom

• Volume One contains general thinking concepts
  • Used to improve our understanding of the world we live in
  • Used to improve our ability to see situations through different lenses
• Not every model applies to every problem
• We are our biggest barriers to learning as we move through life
  • Three reasons this can happen:
    • We don't have the right perspective
      • We must be open to other perspectives to truly understand the result of our actions
    • Ego-driven denial
      • We often fear getting our ideas criticized
      • When our ideas are criticized, we often defend instead of upgrade our ideas
    • We are too far from the consequences of our decisions
• Simple ideas help us prevent complex problems
• The world is smarter than we are --> seek its feedback
• Our ego is friend and enemy

The Map is not the Territory

• Even the most accurate maps have mistakes
  • They are reductions of the world; an abstraction
• A map's structure may be similar or dissimilar to the territory
• The only way we can navigate through reality is by abstraction