The Human Operating Manual

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Language & Meaning

Language & Meaning Contents I. The Water We Swim In Words Carve Up the World Does Your Language Trap Your Thought? When the Problem Is the Words II. Making Sense of It All Where Meaning Comes From The Responses to the Void Building Meaning Deliberately Cross-Links The medium we think in, and the meaning we […]

Mental Model Basics

Mental Model Basics Contents I. What Mental Models Actually Are II. The Latticework Framing (Munger) III. First Principles Thinking IV. Inversion V. Second-Order Thinking VI. Opportunity Cost VII. Expected Value VIII. Base Rates and Probabilistic Thinking IX. Falsification (Popper) X. Occam’s Razor XI. Hanlon’s Razor XII. Circle of Competence XIII. Steel Man vs Straw Man […]

Mental Model Cheatsheet

Mental Model Cheatsheet Contents I. How to Use This Page II. Quick Reference Index III. The Contemplative Orientations IV. The Analytical Mental Models V. The Cognitive Bias Quick Reference VI. The Decision-Making Frameworks VII. The Emotion-in-Decision Framework VIII. The Steel-Manning Practice IX. The Feynman Technique X. The 25-Minute Cycles XI. When to Use Which Tool […]

The Mental Model Rabbit Hole

The Mental Model Rabbit Hole Contents I. The Map Is Not the Territory II. Where Mental Models Come From III. Plato’s Cave and Its Modern Equivalents IV. Kant’s Categories V. Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language VI. The Psychopath Training Problem VII. Avoiding Data Obsession VIII. The Tetlock Superforecasting Research IX. The Gigerenzer Ecological Rationality […]

Brain 2.0

Brain 2.0 Contents I. Why Externalise Cognition II. The Limits of Biological Memory III. What Brain 2.0 Actually Is IV. The PKM Landscape V. The Three Major Methods (Zettelkasten, PARA, BASB) VI. The Capture-Organise-Distill-Express Practice VII. The Current Tool Landscape VIII. The AI Extension Question IX. Common Failure Modes X. Selecting Your System XI. Long-Term […]

Heuristics Basics

Heuristics Basics Contents I. What Heuristics Actually Are II. System 1 and System 2 III. The Cognitive Biases Catalogue IV. The Replication Question V. The Gigerenzer Counter-Position VI. WEIRD Brains and Evolutionary Mismatch VII. Trade-offs as Foundational VIII. The Smell-as-Warning-System Problem IX. The Corrective Lens X. Confirmation Bias and the Falsification Principle XI. Stereotyping and […]

Mental Model Resources

Mental Model Resources The mental models field sits at the intersection of cognitive psychology, behavioural economics, decision science, philosophy of mind, broader epistemology, and applied self-help.  The well-evidenced material: Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s heuristics-and-biases research, Gerd Gigerenzer’s ecological rationality work, Philip Tetlock’s forecasting research, Philip Johnson-Laird’s foundational mental models research in cognitive psychology, the broader […]

Lifestyle Design

Lifestyle Design Contents I. Light Management II. Air Quality and Mould Prevention III. Water Filtration IV. Cleaning Products V. Reducing EMF Exposure VI. Outdoor Exercise Protocols VII. Radiation Considerations VIII. Children’s Environments Taking Control of Your Immediate Environment This is the practical protocols page. The evidence framing lives in The Elements, Clean Freak or Booger […]

Optimize (worksheets)

Optimize Worksheets Author: Brian Johnson (Optimize.me) Topics: Sleep, nutrition, exercise, productivity, longevity, habit All information is attributed to the author. Except in the case where we may have misunderstood a concept and summarized incorrectly. These notes are only for reference and we always suggest reading from the original source. This particular set of notes are […]