Have a look at this: Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-use...
[deleted]
Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
31–40 of 67 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#32I recommend "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald A. Norman. It's not necessarily about developing mental models, but more about the fallout of how people can mistakenly use systems if you don't make the mental model of your design intuitive.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#33Just started going down this rabbit hole myself. I've noticed to really grasp and develop your own mental models you deeply have to understand a few things first:
1. Human biases: Every mental model is built upon some human bias.
2. How incentives work: Understanding the motivation behind why people do what they do.
3. Mental thought construction: Understanding how the brain gathers, processes and stores information.
4. Biology: How we've evolved (and haven't) from stone age times and how that still influences us today.
This is by no means exhaustive but are just some of the topics I've found most useful. That said, here are the best resources I've found:
- The Art Of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli: Taught me about human biases. Reads like a directory of most biases.
- Influence by Robert Cialdini: Taught me about incentives and a whole lot more.
- Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff: Taught me about mental thought construction.
- Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charles Munger: Taught me about many things but most importantly good decision making.
- Sapiens by Yuval Harari and his course https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE-kxvSEhkzDEmLQx3RE0...: Taught me about how we've evolved as humans and how we haven't.
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: Taught me more about human biases.
- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely: Taught me more about how and why we make decisions and what good decisions are.
The thing I've really started to notice is it's not enough to know or read about mental models, you have to ruthlessly apply them. This is tough when even knowing about your biases doesn't stop you from still being affected by them.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#34Creative Thinkers Toolkit is the best book I read and re-read with regards to mental model formation.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Creative-Thinkers-Toolkit/dp/B00G...
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#35To develop mental models you need to start at the ground floor, with understanding basic human nature.
https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Relig...
https://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0...
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#36An Introduction to General Systems Thinking by Gerald Weinberg is a good overview on Systems theory. It covers different approaches to developing a mental model of systems.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#37I like "Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger" https://tinyurl.com/y97dlzr8 and "Art of Decisions: Managing in an Uncertain World" by Chris Blake https://tinyurl.com/ya7lyglr
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Use Occam's Razor?
Use proper URIs? (Or in this case: an ISBN, which serves the same purpose. Unambiguous references are no longer an open issue. Open issue are: the lazyness to not use them, and persistent references (until either Bittorrent or IPFS is fully deployed).)
Yeah, I figured you had an axe to grind.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#39https://www.amazon.com/Mental-Models-Cognitive-Inference-Con...
Quite old, but probably the best book about mental models
Re: Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?
#40What exactly are we all talking about here when we use the phrase "mental models"?
The most memorable use of the phrase to me is Charlie Munger's "Poor Charlie's Almanack". If I recall correctly, whenever he makes a big decision, he runs through a checklist of each of his MMs, to see if that way of thinking gives him any insight into the matter at hand. The key thing, though, is that it isn't just limited to human psychology. He supposedly has a great interest in a whole variety of fields. A Renaissance Man. For example, I recall him using thermodynamics as a metaphor for explaining some seemingly-unrelated topic (e.g. business analysis).