on the advantage of being familiar with a number of accurate models of human behaviour, rather than just knowing a series of unrelated facts

πŸ’Ž On the advantage of being familiar with a number of accurate models of human behaviour, rather than just knowing a series of unrelated facts

In a famous speech in the 1990s, Charlie Munger summed up this approach to practical wisdom: β€œWell, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang β€˜em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form. You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience both vicarious and direct on this latticework of models. 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.”

Excerpt from: The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien

HT: @rshotton

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