Mental Models

Billy Shin — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:16:03 GMT

I have always had a vague recollection of mental models, perhaps on thinking about HOW to think.

Recently, I was pointed to a book, called The Great Mental Models by Shane Perris , and it put into words the vague recollection and grasp I had on mental models, which I relied on reflexivly and intuitively.

I find it, often, its hard to think! You are lost in the details, and consequences of your decision and the follow up actions. I have to get away from these compunding factors to think clearly about the problem or task at hand.

I realize, I often fall back on first principal thinking, but in reality that's only one way of many, in how to approach a problem, and other models may work better to certain situations.

The models:

Inversion Principal

Always invert

First Principals

What is the thing you can't reduce?

2nd (and perhaps, third) order affects

What are the affects of ths your action, and what are the affects of those affects?

Circle of Confidence
Probablistic Thinking
Occam's razor

Simplest systems, with the least moving parts, are the most likely to be true

Hanlon's razor

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

Thought Experiments
The Map is not the Territory

Our representations (maps, models, words, beliefs) of reality are not reality itself (the territory); they are simplifications that can be useful but are incomplete and can lead to errors if mistaken for the complex, actual world

I am going to be writing more in depth about this.

Billy Shin (Posts about models)

Mental Models