| Title | : | The Great Mental Models, Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1999449037 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781999449032 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 397 |
| Publication | : | First published December 1, 2019 |
The Great Mental Models, Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology Reviews
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A good collection of the science frameworks applied to social science. For example a catalyst model in chemistry used to suggest the importance of learning and it ability to be a force multiplier. The book links velocity as speed and size in physics to Napoleon and his use in army strategy. Natural selection as evolution or in this narrative how it applies to to adaption and survival of language. Each chapter frames one science framework a metaphor or model to another more abstract social issue.
The books covers relativity, reciprocity, thermodynamics, inertia, fiction and viscosity, velocity, leverage, activation energy, catalyst, alloying, natural selection, adoption and red queen, competition, echo system, niche, self preparation, replication, cooperation, hierarchy organization, incentives, and tendency to minimize energy output. I might have used a few other analogies to link the framework, author, and abstract social example, but a good collection.
Overall a good read as part of the two part series. I appreciated the other literature reference and annotated several other books that I expect would interest me too. -
This was a frustrating book to read. While the authors brought up some interesting principles/mental models, there was a lot of pseudoscience (like "It is probable that that people first discovered catalysis when alcohol was invented", or "Although the science continues to advance, we lack a comprehensive definition or how many catalysts actually work")
Moreover, they were limited in treating the interesting mental models they did bring up. As an example, Andy Grove and Naval Ravikant treat Leverage as something to build so you can get more output with less input, while the authors bafflingly treat is something that can be used to exploit others.
Having said that, there were some interesting mental models that I meditated on thanks to this book (interesting raisins hidden in a lot of turd)
1. Autocatalysis is when the outputs of a reaction are the same catalysts needed to start it. When this happens the reaction becomes self-sustaining and happens rapidly
2. The Red Queen Effect: You can’t stop adapting, because no one around you is stopping. If you do, your competitive position declines, bringing your survival into question. Every living thing is constantly on the lookout for opportunity, the place to accrue advantage. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: the Red Queen tells Alice, “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
3. Gause’s Law: perfect competition between two species requiring the same resources to survive in the same niche is impossible. Two species of bacteria requiring the same resources could not coexist in a petri dish. One species will find its own niche by becoming increasingly specialized to require different resources from the other
On the whole, would not recommend -
I wish I was taught subjects like this at my university. For many of the topics, though, a personal experience might be in need. Thus, I'm humbled to learn them now, and in some cases even be able to associate from personal experience.
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Немного неоднозначная книга. Некоторые модели кажутся тривиальными, рассказы слишком отвелеченными. Но иногда попадаются настолько интересные и глубокие идеи, что можно простить и забыть любые недостатки. Хорошое чтение для размышлений в духе Баффета и Мангера
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This book reads like a strongly simplified selection of some fundamental concepts in physics, chemistry and biology. They're supposed to be practical and applicable in various aspects in life, but it simply does not work for me.
First, it's not a science book, even a very simplified one. There is no system, criteria by which concepts are chosen and their explanation is also inconsistent in structure and details.
Second (and I had exactly same gripes with the first book in the series), the level of "obviousness" is through the roof. Readers that maybe had not attended primary school or do not read at all will find a level of revelation that's exciting, but for the vast majority - nope. Most people, I surmise, know that alloys allow to create new materials with different, useful features than the original components - that's not anything new or even worth reminding. The question is - how do one uses it in a practical way in everyday life? No answer here.
In result, the entire book may be summarized by a dozen or so commandments of mostly trivial quality, like "sometimes the result of using several ingredients is in some way better than any ingredient by itself". But in the end - what to do with that?
Was it a time well spent (reading this book)? For me - rather not. -
Honestly! I didn't fully read this one. After reading all of the last book, I found that the chapter conclusions were more than enough to give me the core idea. I still think there's way too much fluff in these books. Good idea, but a lot of unnecessary examples and over explanation going on.
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The reason i am giving 4* ¬ 5* because most of the mental models have been covered in farnam street blog which i had been religiously following since 2018.
This book is good in a sense that it weaves a beautiful structure where that mental tools has been applied in past and where this tools can be followed in day to day sense.
The different stories revolving different mental from battle to discoveries to innovation to philosophy is really fascinating.
I have been reading books on mental tool for a while two more interesting book on mental tool is superthinking which also got lots of mental hacks and thinking fast and slow which talks about heuristics -
The more tools you have in your mental toolbox, the more likely you are to make better decisions.
This books covers relativity, reciprocity, thermodynamics, inertia, friction and viscosity, velocity, leverage, activation energy, catalysts, alloying, evolution, ecosystem, self-preservation, cooperation, hierarchical organisation, incentives and finally tendency to minimise energy output, all of which are interesting in their own domain and especially interesting when told as a real-life example of situations that have happened historically or are happening on a daily basis. -
PHYSICS
1. Relativity
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
What you see is useful but limited. The less willing you are to accept and acknowledge limitations, the less useful your perspective.
Multiple perspectives are the reality of life.
!-When you see someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you, ask yourself what the world would have to look like to you for those actions to make sense. Use thought experiment often!
X-We are so used to being on Einstein’s train that we forget it is there. But traveling to new places far outside our normal experiences can jolt us into remembering our train, seeing it in a new light, understanding better its size and shape, and remind us that not everyone is on it.
Perspective often comes from distance or time. If you’re trying to solve a problem and you’re stuck, try shifting your vantage point. Examples of this are moving up and contemplating the bigger picture, moving down and seeing more details, or assuming the perspective of other stakeholders.
2. Reciprocity
Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.
!!-It pays to “go positive and go first.” Also, remember that people make mistakes. Assuming there is no maliciousness, it pays to forgive.
Loss Aversion
Organisms that treat threats as more urgent than opportunities have a better chance to survive and reproduce. When it comes to reciprocity, we need to understand, “We are driven more strongly to avoid losses than to achieve gains.
Win-Win Situation
Life is easier and more enjoyable when we act on starting and maintaining win-win relationships with everyone. Reciprocity has been part of our biological makeup for a very long time.
X-If you want an amazing relationship with your partner, be an amazing partner. If you want people to be thoughtful and kind, be thoughtful and kind. If you want people to listen to you, listen to them.
3. Thermodynamics
Entropy reminds us that energy is required to maintain order. You need to anticipate things falling apart and focus on prevention.
The physical world, all of it, only ever has one destination: equilibrium.
!!-Humans put a lot of effort into preventing disorder. If we look at society broadly, we notice that disorder flares up all the time. Examples of this are laws, religions, social norms, customs, and the stories that explain and perpetuate them.
!!-Nothing escapes the laws of thermodynamics. Everything is moving toward equilibrium, including people, culture, ideas, and information. Of course, total equilibrium means no life, so the place where there is no difference in anything is the place where everything rests. Thus, while pursuing difference is worthwhile and necessary, it’s important to understand that any barrier you try to erect will face a relentless pressure to attain equilibrium. Therefore, it’s important to remember that it takes a lot of work to maintain separation.
4. Inertia
For, like a mass in Newton’s first law of motion, once our minds are set in a direction, they tend to continue in that direction unless acted on by some outside force.
Mass matters. It is much easier to apply the force to stop a light object versus a heavy one.
X-Not that there was a particular answer she was trying to prove, but that there was value in scientific process itself.
!!-It’s human nature to allow the current state to remain as changing it requires us to expend energy. Once something is moving in a direction, it’s much easier to keep it in motion. But once something is in motion, it’s hard to stop. The bigger the mass the more effort required.
5. Friction and Viscosity
!!-To overcome resistance, we often default to using more force when simply reducing the friction or viscosity will do. Doing both is more effective than either in isolation. Friction and viscosity can also be wielded as a weapon. Rather than try and catch up to the competition with more effort, you might want to explore slowing them down by adding resistance.
6. Velocity
"If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him." - Seneca
!-Velocity challenges us to think about what we can do to put ourselves on the right vector, to find a balance between mass and speed to move in the direction of our goals. Gains come from both improving your tactics and being able to adjust to and respond to new information.
!!-We want to move somewhere so we can look back and identify the territory we’ve covered. This is why having a direction is so important: it lets us evaluate the usefulness of what we are doing by giving us a measurement of where we want to go.
7. Leverage
Levers are everywhere, once you start looking for them.
In human interactions, these levers are not purely physical, but instead items or ideas that have a shared, common value
First, don’t sell yourself short and underestimate the value of your leverage.
Second, keep other people wanting what you have. For leverage to exist, all parties must perceive its value.
Third, understand when you can use your leverage and when you can’t.
Good ideas taken too far often cause unanticipated consequences.
CHEMISTRY
1. Activation Energy
Creating lasting change is harder than creating change. Don’t underestimate the activation energy required to not only break apart existing bonds, but to create new, strong ones. Real change takes effort. Invest more than you think you need to, and you just might get there.
2. Catalysts
Catalysts accelerate reactions that are capable of occurring anyway. They decrease the amount of energy required to cause change, and in the process make possible reactions that might not have occurred otherwise. People and technologies often act as catalysts, increasing the pace of social change and development.
3. Alloying
Alloying is about increasing strength through the combination of elements. One plus one can really equal ten.
Aristotle *discussed five components of knowledge. “They are what we today would call science or scientific knowledge (episteme), art or craft knowledge (techne), prudence or practical knowledge (phronesis), intellect or intuitive apprehension (nous) and wisdom (sophia).
BIOLOGY
1. Evolution Part One: Natural Selection and Extinction
Organisms in nature have survived and thrived for billions of years because they have one powerful trait at their disposal—they are adaptive.
Generalist species are far more resilient than specialists. A rat or a cockroach can survive almost anywhere, a panda less so.
There is a constant interplay between environmental changes and a species’ response to them. If we want to understand why some traits stick around, why some customs carry through many generations, and why some ideas take root and spread through a population, we have to look at their usefulness in their environment.
2. Evolution Part Two:
Adaptation requires leaving or being forced from your comfort zone and into a place where you observe and experience new threats to your security.
!-As in an arms race, where one side invests resources to outdo the other, eventually the cost of the resources is immense, but no advantage is gained. In some scenarios, namely those where there is an end to beneficial adaptation, it is better to look at changing parts of the environment in which you are trying to survive instead of trying to keep up in a race that is undermining your overall ability to adapt. Actions that put the existence of an individual or a species in danger are not the goal of adaptation and not supported by the Red Queen Effect.
Success is measured by persistence.
Adaptations are further constrained by the fact that an organism must be viable at all stages of the adaptation process. What this means on the human life timescale is that if you are compromising your physical health or your sanity, you are not adapting. You are instead weakening your ability to successfully respond to changes in your environment.
"No innovation comes into existence perfectly hewn. Error is thus necessary for the generation of variation."
"Inventions are almost never solitary, isolated creatures; they depend on other inventions that complete them or endow them with new applications that their original inventors never considered."
The stronger we are relative to others, the less willing we generally are to change. We see strength as an immediate advantage that we don’t want to compromise. However, it’s not strength that survives, but adaptability. Strength becomes rigidity. Eventually your competitors will match your strength or find innovative ways to neutralize it. 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.
As Darwin recognized, all life is a struggle for survival.
3. Ecosystem
Everyone has a role, and every role is essential.
!!-The structure of an organization must have the flexibility and adaptability to meet unexpected obstacles, crises, or developments. Go beyond to understand the needs of each employee (even in their personal life) in order to not disturb the ecosystem. The organization is not a closed ecosystem.
Too much of any one external factor can effectively kill a system.
Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is connected. The ecosystem lens reveals that the actions of any one species have consequences for many others in the same environment. Many systems can take care of themselves, possessing abilities to correct and compensate for changes and external pressures.
4. Niches
It’s a lot easier to be empathetic if we look at the environment that shaped someone instead of merely considering the end result. To a certain extent, we are all more predictable than we would like to admit.
5. Self Preservation
"If I gave in to fear, I would end up killing my soul to save my body."
6. Replication
The same happened to the Habsburgs. Without genetic diversity, recessive mutations that would
have otherwise failed to show up in children were reinforced and compounded over generations.
We need to inject newness, or the lack of variation proves destructive.
!!-Rigid specialization—by a genetic code, for example—is not feasible, simply because the code would be excessively large, prone to breakdown, and inadequate for anticipating the many challenges and opportunities an economic entity is likely to encounter during its lifetime. The environment always changes, which is why successful replication has a bit of flexibility built in.
Often a good starting point is what others are doing. Once you get a sense and a feel for the environment you can adapt to better suit your own needs.
7. Cooperation
We often talk of the competition—what they are doing, what direction they are headed—so we can keep up where we need to and not get blindsided or lose too much market share. But how many of us devote resources to looking for “the cooperation”—companies or industries with whom we can partner for mutual benefit?
The more encompassing a shared belief gets, the more we forget it is a human construct.
Cooperation teaches us to seek out and frame interactions based on not only what we can get, but also what we can give. If there was any one model that explains humanity, then this is it.
8. Hierarchical Organization
!!-Hierarchies are inherently and inevitably unequal and unfair. The key is to be aware of hierarchies and work with, not against them. We want to use hierarchies as a tool, not be used by them.
!!-Good leadership is about acting in the interests of the group. The easiest way to lead, is to serve.
!!-Hierarchy is a core instinct. We all look for leaders, even if we are looking at ourselves.
9. Incentives
An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often-tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation.
A good leader “leads his men into battle like a man climbing to a height and kicking away the ladder.” 1 When you can’t go back, your motivation is to go forward together.
It always pays to consider the real incentives that are influencing our choices. We often tell ourselves that our motivation is based in goodness, or doing the right thing, when actually we are incentivized by the allure of rewards.
10. Tendency to Minimize Energy Output
“A general ‘law of least effort’ applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion.
X-Psychologists have a word for the efficiency mechanism in how we think: heuristics. When we’re thinking of making a decision, large or small, we use shortcuts developed from our long experience in the world; in chess terms, we do not consider 10 million different moves, but instead rapidly choose the two or three that are most likely to work.
Experience doesn’t become learning without reflection, and reflection is an energy expenditure. -
Not really what I expected at all, but very nicely done. Good wisdom - hopefully I remember some when I need it!
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Much of this book's appeal lies in the fact that a book on this topic ought to exist, and there was none before this came along. Anyone with a better than average understanding of the natural sciences - stuff that is taught in high school - would have an intuitive feel for these concepts. It is therefore, great that those concepts have been modelled by the author for use beyond their original discipline.
I would have happily given the book the full monty if it delved deeper. Many models were backed up by anecdotal evidence. This surely makes the book readable but a lack of epistemological slant makes the book less practical, in my humble opinion. A modicum of hard evidence to back up the application of the model to any setting/industry/era, should elevate the work to a whole new level. I hope that to this end, at-least the book achieves mass readership which it so deserves. Eagerly looking forward to the third volume in the series. -
Second part of the series on mental models, this one is much longer and in my opinion way too long. The book goes into even more length than part 1 trying to give real life examples connected to the mental models.
Some of them didn't really fit, while a few where quite interesting and others left me asking, so what?
Also a lot of it is just pretty obvious and not containing any valuable lesson for your life.
Valuable take aways however where:
1. Relativity and limited perspective
"You will always have limitations to your frame of reference that you need to account for in an effort to better understand reality. You have a limited perspective.
Many problems become clearer if you extend the timeline. What does this situation look like in the weeks, months, and years ahead?
Assuming different perspectives allows you to gain a more complete understanding of what’s really going on."
2. Loss aversion
people are willing to risk losing $ 100 for every $ 250 of potential gains. The loss aversion coefficient is 1: 2.5.
3. Speed vs velocity
"Velocity is often confused with speed, but the two concepts are very different. Speed is just movement; even if you are running in place, you have speed. Velocity has direction. You must go somewhere in order to have velocity. This model teaches us that it’s much more important to pay attention to where you are going and not how fast you are moving. "
4. Fun fact about goosebumps
"The human goosebump reaction to stress or fear is a vestigial response, based on how our ancestors would have fluffed up their fur to look bigger when confronted with a predator."
5. Reminder about cognitive dissonance
"Humans don’t like cognitive dissonance—“the state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent.”
And then justifying things irrationally to avoid that dissonance. -
Gorgeous book that will help you apply mental models from the sciences.
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An excellent application of scientific principles to thought patterns. This book is intriguing throughout. I say this being totally unbiased by my appearance in the acknowledgements.
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Not bad. Some of the models were pretty good.
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My anchor for this book and review, was from Volume 1 in the series, which I thought to be a resourceful and worthwhile read.
Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology, and perhaps due to the science based focus, I found to be less engaging. The book was longer, and felt to be a longer duration to consume.
I do have an interest in Science, and while the correlations of the science headings to extract the learnings, this science aspect just didn't seem to resonate and constituted in a less engaging novel.
However, sections do have merit, and after rereading my highlight,s I was reminded of the some good tidbits which are littered throughout. Although, these were less in comparison with the first book in the series.
I was also able to use the book as a reference for one of my uni assignments, so there was an added benefit.
Some of the standout highlights:
'Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.' - J.D Salinger.
'When it comes to reciprocity, we need to understand, “We are driven more strongly to avoid losses than to achieve gains.'
'Eventually your competitors will match your strength or find innovative ways to neutralise it.' -
I have listened to Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project for years. He is obsessed with better thinking and mental models. This is the second of his three book series and it is great. It has all the qualities of The Knowledge Project: Deep; Thoughtful; Concise; Intelligent; Reflective.
This book uses the models within Physics, Chemistry, and Biology to explain the models, and then use these as metaphors to explain them as broader thinking models. Parrish explains the model and how it works in the natural world, suggests what it implies, and then gives an analogous story drawn from history to show both a positive and negative application of the mental model. He succeeds in the Charles Munger idea of developing a number of models as different ways of thinking about problems in life.
I learned more about science and its philosophical application. It is the sort of book I want to return to regularly to cement the knowledge. I remain a fan of Shane Parrish and The Knowledge Project. He is one of the wisest content developers/providers I have come across. I will read the third book when it is released. -
This book takes some of the major scientific ideas of our day and then applies them in metaphorical ways to life and leadership. For example, inertia can be used to understand why it's hard to change habits and the second law of thermodynamics (everything slides to disorder/decay unless acted on by an outside energy source) can be used to show how we need to keep pouring new ideas and tools and people into our organizations to keep them healthy and strong.
It's well written and easy to read, especially good at explaining the science in a way that doesn't require prior technical knowledge. However, the author couldn't resist making disparaging comments about worldviews and cultures that he doesn't agree with, distracting from the flow of the book for me. To be clear, I like thoughtful challenge, but the single sentence added to the end of the paragraph without any explanation or evidence was unhelpful, especially in a book about how scientific thinking was a helpful way to think. Still worth reading, though, as the main points were good food for though. -
The quality of your thinking depends on the models that are in your head.
Just a great read, solid concept, and a true path to synergistic knowledge and abstract reasoning. Having multiple perspectives on the same issues is just the reality of life; combining and learning about various perspectives puts you in a position to make better decisions and live a happier, wealthier, healthier, and more 'true' life instead of half ass guessing your way through every situation you encounter.
When you see someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you, ask yourself what the world would have to look like to you for those actions to make sense.
The authors examples and analogies across a wide range of spectrums have such a complete and fulfilling framework to them. I'm looking forward to reading the other volumes in this series and would recommend this book to anyone who cares about - not exactly self-help - but just approaching everyday situations with a more complete and accurate viewpoint. -
The first book is quite good, with Parrish introduced many useful mental models (my favorite would be The Map is Not The Territory). Unfortunately this book doesn’t live up the first volume. Many of the mental models seem forced.
Parrish derived the models from the nature around us because ‘the older the source of mental model, the more reliable’. Can’t argue much with that. He then built models based on physics, chemistry, and biology. Of all three. I think only the biology models that is more useful and relatable.
Overall, this is a so so book. It is short, so you don’t waste a lot of time if after completing it you feel this book fails to fill your expectation. It is a book about models after all, so it should be predictable and based on your knowledge about things. Parrish here tried to sum it up into a easy-to-digest thinking framework. -
Review: (2.5★) An interesting collection of mental models you can learn from the sciences. It was intriguing to read about various concepts from physics, chemistry and biology like relativity, inertia, catalysts, adaptation and exaptations etc (although most of them were things I already knew), to connect them in creative, novel ways to apply to life, such as business and human relationships. However, I did feel that the book was a tad too long in certain parts with extraneous details and examples.
3 things I learned:
1. Overcome resistance with action (inertia).
2. It's not about how fast you go (speed), but moving in the direction you want to go (velocity).
3. Learn, adapt and combine from other people and disciplines (alloys, exaptation, meiosis).
Favourite quote: "It's not strength that that survives, but adaptability." -
I read the first volume and loved it. I've been a fan of the Farnam Street blog for some time now and was really happy for this series to come out. At first, I thought this was going to be more "telling" and less "storytelling", given the subtitle. But the great thing about this book is that it uses the properties and principles of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology to tell historical and modern day lessons in a captivating way. Unfortunately, the audio version has a professional narrator so the listener is deprived of the lovely Canadian accent that was present in the first volume (Hi Shane, great work!).
I can't recommend this series enough and look forward to re-listening soon. -
The Great Mental Models: Farnam Street
Many mental models from physics, chemistry, and bio applied to real world situations in business and life. All of my favorites are from physics. Didn’t like the bio chapters.
- Relativity: perspective is gained by understanding how others see the situation
- Thermodynamics: every leader fighting against entropy in their org ; everything in life moves towards equilibrium (people, ideas, culture, info)
- Inertia: nothing happens until something happens
- Velocity: direction over speed every time
- Leverage: (having it) achieving results that are significantly greater than the force you put in
- Catalysts: all organizations need change agents -
The physics section was wonderful, as was the first two sections on evolution.
I found the chemistry stuff a bit commonplace, having read many business books that use these ideas already.
It's interesting to read the reviews saying more about the reviewer than the book. This is a wonderful kids book for very basic insights, but it's so foundational that anyone benefits from reflecting on it.
The two evolution chapters took me three days to really think through on paper. So I loved them.
And the simplicity of the book doesn't give much hint of how sophicated and helpful the models themselves can be in practice. It's a wonderful book.
