Organising the Unorganised Thoughts

So here I am again, wanting to write something. My head and hands feel so numb lately for keeping so many things in my head, unorganised. Do you know what happen when you keep too many things in your drawer, unorganised? You'll find it hard to try to pull something out of it. You even forget that you've kept anything specific on it. In the end, that drawer will become a full but useless one because you think it's just filled with unimportant stuff. Alright, that's a perfect metaphor which I just figured out in my brain as I'm writing this, for the injustice that I think I have done lately to my brain. I feel so excited all of sudden because I'm able to finally jot everything down like this! So here is the stuff that keeps my brain full in the past few weeks:

The concept of mental model

I first discovered this term from my colleague who has his PhD in decision science (a very cool program, I think, since it does not only give you the "theoritical" knowledge, but also gives you the wisdom you need for your own life). What is a mental model, exactly? I also have difficulties in trying to grasp the concept at first. I'm just gonna quote the brief explanation from my new favourite site, Farnam Street, about the definition:

"Mental models are how we understand the world. Not only do they shape what we think and how we understand but they shape the connections and opportunities that we see. Mental models are how we simplify complexity, why we consider some things more relevant than others, and how we reason. A mental model is simply a representation of how something works. 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."

Why am I so amazed by this? I always wonder how some people can be so smart, having broad knowledge, and can see things from various perspective. I'm always a BIG fan of these people, and now I kind of understand why they can be so. It's not only because they are "naturally smart", but they are exposed to or they learn deep about many mental models which shape the way they see the world. And I find that SO amazing.

Again, another quote:

"The quality of our thinking is proportional to the models in our head and their usefulness in the situation at hand. The more models you have—the bigger your toolbox—the more likely you are to have the right models to see reality. It turns out that when it comes to improving your ability to make decisions, variety matters."

It's amazing to me because I now figure out the reason why I love discovering new knowledge, especially from disciplines that I never got exposed to before. It might be because having knowledge of various disciplines can lead us to have a well-rounded understanding and eventually allow us to make better decision, and become wiser in life. And maybe, just maybe, this is also the reason why I aspire to have a life partner who has different area of expertise than me. It is amazing to dream how we would talk about different things and I will be first-hand realise how my partner see single thing from different perspective. LOL. Am I dreaming too high?

As mentioned in Farnam Street blog, building latticework of mental model is a lifelong project. Working on it would enable us to improve our ability to better understand of our surroundings, make better decisions, and help those around us. The blog has a list of useful mental models here for you to learn more.

The concept of second-order-thinking. 

When I heard "first-order"or "second-order", the thing that popped to my mind is numerical optimisation (You know, first order method which requires first derivative a.k.a gradient, second order method which requires second derivatives, and so on). Apparently, the term can also be used in thinking. First order thinking is when you can think of the immediate consequence of some kind of act, like the first layer of it. Second order thinking is when you can also think further about the subsequent impact of that act, holistically. Mastering second-order thinking is what makes you different with the general population because naturally, human have the ability to do first-order thinking in all situation, but not second-order thinking. It's also amazing to me how I observe my nephews growing his second-order thinking. He started to know that doing x does not only impact y, but he also knows if y happens that it means he will observe z (Amazing and sad at the same time, because that means he's not so little anymore :') ok why am I getting emotional all of a sudden?)

Derivative of Occam's Razor.

When people mention Occam's Razor, I will always remember my favourite lecturer back from my Bachelor study, Pak Ruli. I could not specifically recall which example that he used in one of his classes when he briefly joked about this razor, but what I remembered from his explanation is that out of all possible events, the thing that is most likely to happen next would be the one having least difference to what just happened before that i.e. the simplest one. It's very unlikely that a major complex change will happen all of a sudden without any prior events which lead to that. That's the only understanding about Occam's Razor that I believed in before, and I might not really grasp the concept accurately. So recently, I read about the details of this Razor, and turned out it's much more meaningful that that. Occam's Razor is not only about "the simplest solution is correct", but in its heart, it's a principle of minimum energy. One of the derivatives of this can be used to scientifically explain why is it that when a person repeats the same action on a regular basis in response to the same cue and reward (or practice something over and over again), it will become a habit as the corresponding neural pathway is formed. According to Occam's razor, it's because from then on, our brain will use less energy to complete the same action. This is just one of derivates of Occam's Razor that I find so mind-blowing.


And those are the three concepts that get my brain excited lately. I also realise now that mostly I'm so amazed when I find a scientific reason of anything that I usually observe without much context, things that I previously thought as only natural to happen. After all, it all boils down to science. Crazy, how this world works.

Ciao!