Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

fs.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 37 posts

Re: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

#11

Post by 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)

Re: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

#13

Post by 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/)

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

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ba4zvf626zpqz57/mental%20models.op...

Re: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

#15

Post by crispyambulance »

thisisit wrote: post #2

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.

There are many ways to "think".

Sure, folks successfully use models/patterns/theories/beliefs/instinct to reduce complex realities into comprehensible problems with tractable paths to solutions.

But I think the enumeration of models in one's "toolbox" is less important than being able to apply them (whatever they are) skillfully.

The OP just sounds like fodder designed to appeal to biz-types who crave and worship snap decision making.

Re: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

#16

Post by zby »

thisisit wrote: post #2

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.

"A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real world. It is a representation of the surrounding world, the relationships between its various parts and a person's intuitive perception about his or her own acts and their consequences" this is from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_model - but I remember also similar definitions from other sources.

I would say all thinking is about building a mental model - it is what lets you predict how something will behave in a particular circumstance. Some mental models are not very reusable, some are applicable in many places - and it seems useful to collect the more universal models.

Re: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

#17

Post by spodek »

Mandatum wrote: post #5

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

I recommend my book, "ReModel: Create mental models to improve your life and lead simply and effectively" 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...

Re: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

#19

Post by perseusprime11 »

tim333 wrote: post #10

Vaguely related I've found Yuval Harari's stuff interesting ( 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 an…

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.

Re: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)

#20

Post by 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!

Post reply on HN