"Mental Models"
The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions
(Definition and 100+ Thinking Tools)

\\\\ A MEGA-THREAD by @Wise_Chimp //

What Are Mental Models?

We cannot keep all of the details of the world in our brains, so we use models to simplify the complex into understandable and organizable chunks.

Mental models are how we understand the world.
They shape the connections and opportunities that we see.

The quality of our thinking is proportional to the models in our head.

The more models you have—the bigger your toolbox—the more likely you are to have the right models to see reality.

If you're only looking at the problem one way, you've got a blind spot.
And blind spots can kill you.

By default,
A typical Engineer will think in systems.
A psychologist will think in terms of incentives.
A biologist will think in terms of evolution.

By putting these disciplines together in our head, we can walk around a problem in a three dimensional way.

You’ve got to have models in your head.

"You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You’ve got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head."

- Charlie Munger

To help you build your latticework of mental models so you can make better decisions, I've collected and summarized the ones I've found the most useful.

In the next few days, I'll add 100+ mental models to this thread.
So don't forget to follow me: @Wise_Chimp

Also recommend following my friend, @wisdom_theory, and buying his course on mental models.

It is one of the best tools for memorizing and internalizing these great thinking tools:
(aff link) https://gumroad.com/a/1036448883/AxfYH

If this thread was valuable to you, please consider retweeting the first tweet of it: https://twitter.com/wise_chimp/status/1353757790901325824