读书笔记：The great mental models

Understanding

• When understanding is separated from reality, we lose our powers. 理解和真实脱节，就失去了力量

• If you don’t test your ideas against the real world—keep contact with the earth—how can you be

• If you don’t test your ideas against the real world—keep contact with the earth—how can you be sure you understand?

• We become invested in defending instead of upgrading our ideas.

• you’re surprised when you get the same results over and over. Why? You’ve failed to reflect on your new understanding and adjust your behavior. 你的理解没有更新，所以没办法调整你的行为

• When we use flawed models we are more likely to misunderstand the situation, the variables that matter, and the cause and effect relationships between them.

• Understanding reality is the name of the game. 游戏的本质就是理解真实

• This understanding helps us eliminate avoidable errors. Sometimes making good decisions boils down to avoiding bad ones.

• it doesn’t survive real world experience, or when our model is right and we apply it to a situation where it doesn’t belong.

Model

• we don’t have the right models to understand the situation, we overuse the models we do have and use them even when they don’t belong.

• Relying on only a few models is like having a 400-horsepower brain that’s only generating 50 horsepower of output.

• “Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember

• mental models you need to get started. To help

• the map is not the territory. In other words, the description of the thing is not the thing itself. 一比一的地图是没有任何意义的, 地图的意义在于抽象

• the only way we can navigate the complexity of reality is through some sort of abstraction.

• we do not understand a model, map, or reduction unless we understand and respect its limitations.

• Adding together the component partial

• That’s how good maps are built: feedback loops created by explorers.

• the real world, not an abstract mathematical world: our models are not the reality. 模型不是真实的，真实世界不是抽象的

• we must always be wise to their limitations.

• we must always be wise to their limitations. They are, by definition, reductions of something far more complex. 地图就是减少复杂性到可以被理解的程度

• As more and more people know what model you’re using to manipulate them, they may decide not to respond to your incentives.

• As your competitors gain knowledge of the model, they respond in kind by adopting the model themselves, thus flattening the field.

• Maps, or models, are necessary but necessarily flawed. 地图或者模型都必须是具有缺陷的

• A theory is part of empirical

• Science if and only if it conflicts with possible experiences and is therefore in principle falsifiable by experience.

Incentives

• We don’t keep the right records, because we don’t really want to know what we’re good and bad at. Ego is a powerful enemy when it comes to better understanding reality. 自尊心是强有力的敌人，让自己不想知道自己到底是好还是坏，并让自己远离真实。

• The problem of incentives can really skew how much you can rely on someone else’s circle of competence.

• we’re not on solid ground until we know, in some detail. 再不知道足够的细节之前，我们的根基都是不稳固的。

• Elizabeth knew there were aspects of leading the country that were outside her circle of competence. She had an excellent education and had spent most of her life just trying to survive. Perhaps that is why she was able to identify and admit to what she didn’t know. 超棒的技术：承认/找出自己不知道的事情

• The idea here is that if you can’t prove something wrong, you can’t really prove it right either.

• The idea here is that if you can’t prove something wrong

Trend

• Trend is not destiny. 趋势不是命运
• Bertrand Russell’s classic example of the chicken that gets fed every day is a great illustration of this concept. （🐤️每天被人喂养，直到屠宰发生前都会觉得事情会这样一直持续下去。）
• We tend to assume that the worst that has happened is the worst that can happen, and then prepare for that. We forget that “the worst” smashed a previous understanding of what was the worst. Therefore, we need to prepare more for the extremes allowable by physics rather than

• We tend to assume that the worst that has happened is the worst that can happen, and then prepare for that. We forget that “the worst” smashed a previous understanding of what was the worst. Therefore, we need to prepare more for the extremes allowable by physics rather than what has happened until now.

• I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile. 没有理解力的知识是脆弱的

contributions from Aristotle and Descartes.

如何对待自己的idea

• Socratic questioning generally follows this process:

1. Clarifying your thinking and explaining the origins of your ideas. (Why do I think this? What exactly do I think?)

2. Challenging assumptions. (How do I know this is true? What if I thought the opposite?) Looking for evidence. (How can I back this up? What are the sources?)

3. Considering alternative perspectives. (What might others think? How do I know I am correct?)

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

5. Questioning the original questions. (Why did I think that? Was I correct? What conclusions can I draw from the reasoning process?)

• which is exceptionally useful for identifying first principles: repeatedly asking “why?”

• As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. 方法太多，但原则的数量是有限的，深层的原则比方法更重要。

思维实验

• Thought experiments can be defined as “devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things.” 思维实验可以定义为“用于研究事物本质的想象力设备”。

• Its chief value is that it lets us do things in our heads we cannot do in real life, and so explore situations from more angles than we can physically examine and test for.

• a thought experiment generally has the following steps:
1. Ask a question Conduct background research Construct hypothesis
2. Test with (thought) experiments
3. Analyze outcomes and draw conclusions
4. Compare to hypothesis and adjust accordingly (new question, etc.)

• tremendously useful. Imagining physical impossibilities Re-imagining history Intuiting the non-intuitive

• it started with a simple thought experiment, impossible to actually perform.

• Thought experiments tell you about the limits of what you know and the limits of what you should attempt. 思想实验告诉您有关已知知识的局限性和应尝试的局限性。

• Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. （结果说明一切是一种恶和愚蠢）

• Garrett Hardin proposed his First Law of Ecology: “You can never merely do one thing.”

• We operate in a world of multiple, overlapping connections, like a web, with many significant, yet obscure and unpredictable, relationships.[[How to take smart notes]] 建立笔记的链接有助于捕捉事物之间的联系。

• purpose of using antibiotics to increase cattle

反脆弱

• There are two ways to handle such a world: try to predict, or try to prepare. 对待世界我们有两种方式，尝试预测，或者试着准备。

• The Antifragile mindset is a unique one. Whenever possible, try to create scenarios where randomness and uncertainty are your friends, not your enemies. 反脆弱的思维是独一无二的，随机性和不确定性是你的朋友，而不是敌人。

• Trying to invert the relationship can help you sort through claims to determine if you are dealing with true causation or just correlation. 试着翻转因果可以帮助你更好的处理因果关系。

• “hired to sell a product or service, he instead sold whole new ways of behaving, which appeared obscure but over time reaped huge rewards for his clients and redefined the very texture of American life.” 出售的不是产品，而是全新的行为模式，重新定义事物。

• Think about not only what you could do to solve a problem, but what you could do to make it worse—and then avoid doing that, or eliminate the conditions that perpetuate it. 不仅要考虑可以解决问题的方法，还应考虑使问题变得更糟的方法，然后避免这样做，或者消除使问题永久化的条件。

• the most simple explanation for a miracle is that the miracle-witnesser is not describing the event correctly, or the miracle represents a more common phenomenon that we currently don’t properly understand. “奇迹”要么是理解不够，要么是描述不正确。