The Great Mental Models, Volume Two – Shane Parrish

The Great Mental Models, Volume Two – by Shane Parrish (Farnam Street)
Recommendation: 9/10. Date read: 1/18/21.

The Great Mental Models series by Farnam Street blows me away. The second book in this series focuses on the hard sciences including chemistry, biology, and physics. They do a tremendous job articulating the laws and models in a way that makes sense for those without a Ph.D. And rather than simply stating the law and sticking with the abstract, they translate how it applies to situations in your everyday life. They explain how laws of reciprocity translate to relationships, the ways in which inertia requires us to overcome the allure of what’s easy, and how an ecosystem translates to the most effective, creative, and collaborative working cultures.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Relativity:
“The limits of perspective are fundamental to how the world works. Considering multiple perspectives is the best chance we have to understand what is really going on.”

“What matters is understanding the complexity and value of multiple perspectives. No one sees it all. Multiple perspectives layered together reduce blind spots and offer us a more textured and truer sense of the underlying reality.” 

Reciprocity:
Life is an iterative and compounding game…it pays to go positive and go first.

“The more people you help, the more people you will have willing to help you.”

“If you want people to be thoughtful and kind, be thoughtful and kind. If you want people to listen to you, listen to them. The best way to achieve success is to deserve success.”

Thermodynamics:
First law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transferred or changed from one form to another. Consider how this applies in death. 

“Entropy reminds us that energy is required to maintain order. You need to anticipate things falling apart and focus on prevention.”

Exposure: “Mixing cultures gives them common ground. We move toward social equilibrium when we share ideas and values that have the same foundations.”

“Art is born out of as well as encapsulates the continuing battle between order and chaos. It seeks order or form, even when portraying anarchy.” John Yorke

Storytelling: “Every act of perception is an attempt to impose order, to make sense of a chaotic universe.”

Inertia:
“We stay at jobs we hate, avoid meaningful conversations with people of different opinions, and almost never change the religion our parents imposed on us at birth. All because it is easier to stay on our current path, however stagnant and unfulfilling it might be.”

Amount of effort required to change a habit is greater proportional to the length of time we’ve had it. This applies to both good habits and bad habits. Once you’ve established decades of good habits, it compounds and becomes difficult to stop your own success. The same applies in the opposite direction. 

Velocity:
Direction > speed

“If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him.” Seneca

Alloying:
Stacking skills is a force multiplier: “Alloying is about increasing strength through the combination of elements.”

Evolution:
“On the human timescale, adaptability is about recognizing when the way you have done things in the past is becoming less and less successful in a changing environment.” 

What got you here won’t keep you here or allow you to get to the next level. Personal growth is a lifelong effort and requires taking new risks: “You can’t stop adapting, because no one around you is stopping…Staying the same as we are often means falling behind.” 

“Success is measured by persistence.” Geerat Vermeij

Experimentation for its own sake matters: “We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.” Marie Curie

Antifragile: “Complacency will kill you. However, it’s not strength that survives, but adaptability. Strength becomes rigidity…Real success comes from being flexible enough to change, to let go of what worked in the past, and to focus on what you need to thrive in the future.”

Ecosystem:
Culture = the key to perseverance. Bill Walsh leading the 49ers: “Walsh recognized that a football organization’s culture is ultimately the system that will determine if a team can sustain the effort needed to win a championship.” Walsh believed, “everyone has a role, and every role is essential.” But they all had to be pointing in the same direction.

“The stronger and more resilient a system, the easier it can adapt and bounce back.” For Walsh it wasn’t about superstars or certain formations, “It was about building a culture that could be flexible in effectively responding to ever-changing environmental pressure.”

Self-preservation:
“Freeze mode usually takes over when the accumulation of stressors is so great that we can no longer really function.” 

Man’s search for meaning: “For humans, survival is not merely a binary like dead/alive. We don’t want to just continue breathing, but to have a life that we perceive as having meaning, value, or at least a point.”

Replication:
Commander’s intent: “Sharing the information necessary to empower subordinate commanders on the scene.” Too rigid and the person doing the work can’t adapt and innovate to execute against the strategy when circumstances change. Encourages troops to consider the why behind an order and the underlying strategy. 

Four elements of commander’s intent: formulate, communicate, interpret, and implement. The first two are the responsibilities of the senior commander. The second two are the responsibilities of the subordinate commander. 

Commander’s must consider four criteria:

1. Explain the rationale (the why): vision + strategy

2. Establish operational limits: constraints

3. Get feedback often: listen and learn

4. Recognize individual differences: leverage individual strengths

Incentives:
“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.” Charlie Munger

“An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often-tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation.” Stephen D. Levitt

Least effort principle:
“Change is costly for most organisms. It can be easier to keep doing whatever has guaranteed their survival so far than to try something new that might fail and waste energy or endanger them. The instinct to minimize energy output can lead us to be resistant to change or risk-taking. “

Default thinking tendencies (aka heuristics): “Using this model as a lens helps us better understand our default thinking tendencies, and how our patterns of movement impact our physical environments.” 

Degrees Kelvin – David Lindley

Degrees Kelvin – by David Lindley
Date read: 9/25/19. Recommendation: 7/10.

A biography of mathematical physicist and engineer, Sir William Thomson (1824-1907). This is a challenging read to get through, especially if you’re not well-versed in thermodynamics or electromagnetism (I’m not). But there’s a compelling story at the heart of Thomson’s life, and that’s what kept me going. Thomson was undeniably brilliant. At 22 he was appointed chair of natural philosophy at Glasgow, and by 31 he helped lay the foundations of thermodynamics. But his early brilliance turned into resistance and obstructionism as he grew older. He refused to keep up with the times and grew out of touch with the latest developments in science. He was remarkably and adamantly wrong about quite a few important topics: he doubted the existence of atoms, believed earth was no more than 100 million years old, and had reservations about radioactivity. Thomson’s story is a cautionary tale of clinging to an antiquated worldview. Everyone tends to think their formative years were sacred. Don’t fall into this trap. If you cling to your era and your generation too tightly, you blind yourself to new ideas.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Sir William Thomson (1824-1907), first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords (Lord Kelvin). At 22 became the professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow which he would hold for more than 50 years.

Combining theoretical with practical:
In 1845, Kelvin worked in the Paris laboratory of Victor Regnault to measure the thermal properties of steam and improve steam engine design. Steam power was critical during the industrial revolution. Opened Kelvin’s eyes to practical science and the implications of the theory of heat in technology. Shifted from a mathematician to a scientist during this time. 

Telegraphy introduced him to a world of innovation and patents that helped him generate money through consulting and advising. Mixed science with business meetings. Made his mark in the world of commerce and enterprise. 

Multidisciplinary:
Kelvin was a scientist + technologist, academic + entrepreneur, philosopher + practical thinker. 

Divide in his reputation (from young to old):
In newspapers and publications, his scientific knowledge was remarkable. At meetings and conferences, he was a crank. 

Refused to keep up with the times and grew out of touch with the latest developments in science. And he was remarkably wrong about quite a few important topics: doubted the existence of atoms, believed earth was no more than 100 million years old, had reservations about radioactivity. 

And he was relentless in his defense of incorrect positions such as the 100m year assessment of earth. Wrote to the London Times in 1906 arguing against radioactivity (even though it was widely accepted that radioactive decay involved the transmutation of one element into another). 

Everyone tends to think their formative years were sacred, don’t fall into this trap. Don’t cling to your era and your generation too tightly or you blind yourself to the latest developments. Kelvin is a perfect example of someone who grew out of touch as the years passed.

Brilliance at a young age (laying foundations of thermodynamics all before he turned 31, exploring the nature of electricity and magnetism) turned into resistance and obstructionism as he grew older. 

Took a very “mechanical” view of the universe that limited his imagination and rendered him an antique. 

Michael Faraday:
Part of Kelvin’s brilliance and folly was the fact that he couldn’t understand or contemplate an idea until he was able to put it in a mathematical form. Michael Faraday, by contrast, took a complete opposite approach because he didn’t know mathematics. Faraday’s power was one of pure imagination - he devised theories in pictures

At 13, Faraday apprenticed under a bookseller and read whatever he could get his hands on. Electricity and chemistry peaked his interest, bought glass jars, and began to run his own experiments. He was fanatical and orderly in taking notes. Completely dedicated to self-improvement. Similar narrative to Benjamin Franklin.

Drawdown periods and isolation: Faraday wasn’t a regular at meetings and conferences and he turned down numerous offers for professorial positions. “After spending his early research years mainly on chemical work (notably he succeeded in liquefying chlorine), he moved into electrochemistry (reactions stimulated by the passage of electric current through solutions) and thence into his pioneering and utterly original studies of electricity and magnetism.” DL

Vision: Faraday shaped modern view of electromagnetic field more than anyone else. “He was a magnificent experimenter, but guiding his experiments was a powerful vision of electromagnetism. He had one of the great theoretical minds in physics.” DL (this is what Kelvin lacked)

Constructing a theory:
Kelvin’s method: “Apply sound reasoning to empirical knowledge and thereby create a theory that was sweeping and general but at the same time founded on fact.” DL

“He had an exceptional ability to sort and clarify, to resolve confusion and contradiction, and many of the standard elements of classical thermodynamics trace back to his definitions and arguments.” DL

Development of thermodynamics:
Great example of how murky discoveries in science can be. Rarely can one person be credited with a discovery. Rankine, Thomson, Clausius, Carnot, Joule, all made major contributions. Helped establish thermodynamics as a fundamental discipline of physical science. 

Richard Feynman – Six Easy Pieces

Six Easy Pieces – by Richard Feynman
Date read: 8/2/19. Recommendation: 8/10.

Perhaps the most accessible introduction to physics that there is. Six Easy Pieces highlights the easiest, foundational chapters from The Feynman Lectures on Physics – a book based on Feynman’s lectures to undergraduates at the California Institute of Technology between 1961-1963. The chapters discuss atoms, basic physics, how physics fits in with other sciences, energy, gravity, and quantum behavior. Feynman’s ability to reduce complex subjects into simple pieces and stories, weaving in his humor and showmanship along the way, made him such a fascinating, approachable teacher.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Features the six most accessible chapters from The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1963). 

Intro on Feynman:
Demonstrated balance in his practicality and showmanship. “Feynman was driven to develop a deep theoretical understanding of nature, but he always remained close tot he real and often grubby world of experimental results.” Paul Davies

Similar to Benjamin Franklin, broke arbitrary rules at will, viewed his world and social environment as a series of puzzles and challenges.

“For Feynman, the lecture hall was a theater, and the lecturer a performer, responsible for providing drama and fireworks as well as facts and figures.” David L. Goodstein

On his teaching methods: “First figure out why you want the students to learn the subject and what you want them to know, and the method will results more or less by common sense.” Feynman

What distinguished Feynman was his ability to reduce deep, abstract ideas to something you could begin to wrap your mind around.

Fundamentals of physics:
Experimentation: “The principle of science: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific ‘truth.’”

“The sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment.”

Imagination: But you also need imagination to take hints, guess at patterns beneath them, and run another round of experiments to check your guess. Similar to product development. 

The most important hypothesis in all of science: “Everything is made of atoms…there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.” 

How to tell if a guess is right: 1) When nature has arranged to be simple with few parts so we can predict what will happen. 2) Measure against less specific rules derived from them. Bishop always on a red square, always check on our idea about the bishop’s motion by looking for that. 3) Approximation.

If it’s not science, it’s not necessarily bad:
Avoid getting trapped into a shallow perspective: ”If something is said not to be a science, it does not mean that there is something wrong with it; it just means that it is not a science.”

The small and large operate according to entirely different laws:
Things on a small scale behave like nothing you have any direct experience with.