title: First Principle
date: 2020-08-04 00:00:00
First principles is the principles we use to build understanding on top of them.
If we never learn to take something apart, test our assumptions about it and reconstruct it, we end up bound by what other people tell us, trapped in the ways things have always been done.
When the environment changes. we just continue as if things were the same, making costly mistakes along the way
There are two main techniques to establish first principles,
title: Socratic Questioning
date: 2020-08-07 00:00:00
Socratic method 🔗
- Clarifying your thinking. Why do I think this, What exactly do I think?
- Challenging assumptions
- Looking for evidences
- Considering alternative perspectives (What might others think? How do I know I am correct?)
- Examining consequences and implications ( What are the consequences if I am wrong?)
- Questioning the original questions (Why did I think that? was I correct?)
title: None
date: 2020-08-18 00:00:00
Five Why’s 🔗
It’s a way to depth on what you know, and what you don’t know. trying to understand the world as a 5 year does. Asking compulsively Why every time.
The idea is to get the main idea we want to deep, and ask Why is this true? and what ever the answer is, ask again: Why?
If in any of the answers you get to a “cause this is how it is” or Cause yes. You found an assumption that you need to check.
title: None
date: 2020-08-18 00:00:00
- the map of reality is not reality. not the best map. if it was so accurate it will also continue the map itself and would be as complex as reality
- maps are reductions of reality. to help us to understand the reality and make decisions without having to understand all the territory. most of the times we just need good enough information
- the truth is we can only navigate the complex reality through some abstraction.
- but was useful the maps are. we have to understand that they are not the reality. we can not ignore the feedback loops that validates our understanding of the world and the reality
- we should understand the limitations of the map
- we can us maps to guide us, but we must not let them prevent us from discovering new territory or updating our maps
- in order to use a map we should consider
- reality is the ultimate update
- consider the cartographer : for example, what you know from the news are maps of the reality, but depending on who made the map, it will contain different biases
- maps can influence territory =>
title: Circle Of Competence
date: 2020-07-17 00:00:00
- understanding and being honest about when we have and edge with the knowledge we have or where we have gaps. will improve our decision making process
- in our circle of competence we know exactly what we don’t know. we can make decisions fast and relatively accurate. we have ways multiple source of info we can tap
- the circle of competence is not static, you can not achieve it and then move to the next thing. reality moves and that means there is new things to learn
- how you build a circle of competence
- learning, that means when experience is meet reflection
- but learning all by yourself, is costly and slow. learning from the experience of others is more productive
- learn from the mistakes of others, you cannot live enough to make them all by yourself
- how to behave outside your circle of competence
- 1. learn the basics, be aware your an stranger but basic info is normally easy to obtain and the first pieces of info rare the ones that have more value
- 2. talk to somebody who has this circle of competence. be mindful, and take your time to do a bit of research and make questions
- 3. try to connect your different ideas you already have ((also the mental models), to augment your limited understanding of this domain
- “but learning all by yourself, is costly and slow. learning from the experience of others is more productive”
title: Thought Experiment
date: 2020-08-18 00:00:00
Thought experiments allow us to dig deeper on “What if” questions allowing us to:
- Improve our understanding of the world, by making thinking what if… and then check how the world would change. Also tells you a lot of what you don’t know
- Get consciousness of our plan, for example I buy 1000 of stock, what if, starts going up 10% in a single day? should I sell? what if goes down but little by little? etc..
- Allow us to do impracticable experiments, i.e if you have a car without control, and you can choose between turning right you kill a single person or doing nothing and hitting 5 persons. You don’t want to make this kind of experiments in the real world
title: Second Order thinking
date: 2020-08-19 00:00:00
Our actions have consequences that normally we can predict, this is First order thinking, but we want also to understand the ripples that our actions that might eclipse the benefits first order benefit.
People don’t consider the effects of the effects
Always ask yourself “And then what?”
Second order thinking is not predicting the future, you can only predict likely events that will occur with the information you have now. However not being able to predict the future, is not an excuse to not consider the second order outcomes.
This is a useful model for seeing past immediate gains and identify long term gains.
Also it’s a useful model for Persuasion, showing that you had make into account the effects of effects, shows that you had a much deeper thought of the idea.
title: None
date: 2020-08-17 00:00:00
Bank of trust: each interaction is an opportunity to gain/loss trust Mental Models