Mental Models

Systems are everywhere. A system is “a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network” (definition by Oxford Languages). Your hiring process, marketing, sales, and the whole business are all systems. So is how you date, how you stay healthy, etc. Feedback loops are a fundamental concept of system theory. Feedback is information communicated in response to an action. When the output of a system becomes information that affects its behavior, we have a feedback loop at hand....

What are the chances of a specific outcome occurring? That is the leading question of probabilistic thinking. It’s a mathematical concept that defines the field of statistics. But it applies to every field that includes some measure of uncertainty. It’s a great tool for decision-making and any type of risk management. Probabilistic thinking helps you to better forecast the future. From this point onwards, the future is a collection of possible scenarios, but not all of them are equally likely to occur....

First principles are the foundation from which any other action or insight is derived from. You can uncover them by asking “why” or using a Socratic type of questioning. You know you’ve got a first principle if you can’t deduce it from other principles. Thinking from first principles means starting from a basis without assumptions or beliefs. Hence, it’s the best starting point for any solid argumentation or deduction. It avoids incorrect beliefs early on and is a robust way of thinking....

👉 Adapt or die. I’ve called this principle by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection. – Charles Darwin Evolution is the fundamental process underlying biology. It describes how organisms adapt over time by a process of natural selection. The environment is not static and it’s in constant flow. Resources that at some point were abundant become scarce and organisms compete to get enough of them....

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” – George Box Reality is incredibly complex. To handle it and reduce the complexity, we create models that zoom in on aspects of how the world works. They are abstractions that simplify reality and make it easier to understand the world and avoid overwhelm. How good an abstraction is, is always measured by its utility. Imagine if when you wanted to buy a car, you had to say, “Honey, let’s go look at configurations of metals, polyester, and plastic....