Thinking & Analysis
18 concepts
FM = force multiplier — a concept that improves your use of every other concept
- Critical ThinkingThe difference between hearing an argument and testing whether its reasoning actually holds before your brain locks in a verdict.
- Bayesian ThinkingWhen chest pain starts at 2% cardiac probability, an abnormal ECG shifts to 25%, and cocaine history pushes past 60%.
- Scientific MethodYou're confident in an explanation but realize you've never specified what evidence would prove it wrong.
- Occam's RazorMultiple explanations fit the evidence, and you're drawn to the most elaborate one because it makes the best story.
- Socratic MethodSomeone holds a firm position without examining the premises beneath it, and a well-placed question could surface what instruction cannot.
- Lateral ThinkingEvery proposed solution optimizes the current approach, but nobody has questioned whether the approach itself is the problem.
- Creative ThinkingThe capacity to collide unlike ideas and recognize when the collision produces something that did not exist before.
- Analytical DepthYou found a plausible explanation and stopped, but the pattern it cannot account for is right there in the data.
- Evidence EvaluationA claim arrives with data attached and the question is not what it says but how much it should weigh.
- Reasoned JudgmentThe data doesn't clearly point one way, multiple interpretations are plausible, and something important depends on getting it right.
- Epistemic HumilityWhen you accept confident claims without question, later discover they were wrong, and realize you never asked how they knew.
- First Principles ThinkingEveryone quotes the same cost as though it were physics, but the raw inputs total a fraction of the price.
- Systems Thinking FMYou fixed the problem, it returned, you fixed it harder, and two new problems appeared where you were not looking.
- Second-Order ThinkingThe solution is obvious, everyone agrees it will work, and nobody has asked what happens two steps later.
- Assumption Archaeology FMYou feel certain about a conclusion but cannot name a single premise beneath it you consciously chose to believe.
- Signal vs. NoiseYou have consumed more analysis than ever about this decision, and your clarity is worse than when you started.
- Visionary ThinkingYou see a specific future others dismiss as unrealistic and catch yourself reverse-engineering the steps from there to here.
- FalsificationYou catch yourself collecting reasons you're right and realize you've never once gone looking for the evidence that would prove you wrong.