There are 4 components of Idiosyncratic thinking
#1. Critical thinking
- Critical thinking — Is a method of analyzing information critically to determine its validity and usefulness.?
- Normal people — Judge information by its source, channel, and how well it fits what they already believe. Example: It was on the news, it must be true. The government wouldn’t lie. Yeah, that’s what I’ve been hearing.?
- Critical thinkers — Judge information critically by questioning it and challenging it, regardless of its source. Example: Doctors, government, and the news say smoking isn’t bad for health, how do they know? Where is the data??
- Masters think critically — They’re extremely careful about what they believe to be true and they ruthlessly analyze information and fact-check it before they commit it to the Unified Field Theory they use to perceive the world.?
- Assume wrong until proven right — To protect yourself from misinformation, default to assuming all information is wrong until it’s scientifically proven right, regardless of who told you, their level of authority, or their emotions.?
Critical thinking part #1 — Understand objects
- Remove yourself — Take a third-party observer's view of the situation, don’t think as a participant.
- Remove identities — Form an abstract understanding of things as “objects” and “relationships” to bring clarity.
- Identify objects — What people or things are they talking about and what words are they using to define them.
- Identify relationships — How do these objects relate to each other and in what directions.
- Identify time sequence — When and in what order did these objects relate to each other.
- Remove ambiguity — People may use multiple words to describe objects/relationships, remove ambiguity.
- Remove emotions — Don’t count emotions as objects or relationships, remove them from the equation.
- Remove loops — People may loop the same object/relationship flow multiple times in different ways, remove them.
Critical thinking part #2 — Examine the argument
- Examine argument — Identity what the argument is for/against by identifying it’s core components:
- Claim — What the argument is attempting to claim as the “truth”.
- Premise — A reason offered as support for the claim (since, for, because, the reason that, granted that, given the fact).
- Conclusion — A claim that is supported by the premise (so, therefore, consequently, thus, hence, accordingly).
- Judge argument — Determine if arguments are “valid” or “invalid” based on premises supporting conclusions.
- View from all angles — Take a look at all related parties from all related angles/perspectives to see differences.
- Examine motive — Identify what all related parties want and what benefits them for others to believe/not believe.
Critical thinking part #3 — Discount biases
- Discount authority — Don’t give authority privilege when analyzing information, distrust it and be cautious.
- Discount consensus — Don’t perceive consensus as correctness when analyzing information, distrust it.
- Discount Popularity — Don’t perceive your acceptance and popularity with others as a signal of accuracy.
- Discount culture — Don’t relate information to your culture (or others), analyze it in isolation from bias.
- Discount religion — Don’t relate information to your religion (or others), analyze it in isolation from bias.
- Discount politics — Don’t relate information to your political views (or others), analyze it in isolation from bias.
- Discount yourself — Don’t relate information to what you do/don’t want to hear, analyze it in isolation from bias.
- Discount emotion — Don’t perceive your emotional response (or others) as right/wrong when analyzing information.
Critical thinking part #4 — Drill with questions
- Drill until you understand — Keep asking questions to the subjects, participants, advisors, friends, and yourself until you believe you fully understand the nature of the thing. As you dig deeper you’ll discover it is like an onion!
Critical thinking part #5 — Problem-solving
The “5 Whys” — Is a problem-solving framework that’s extremely simple and effective. Start by clearly identifying?the problem statement and then ask “Why” 5 times (or more)?until you identify the root cause. Keep asking why until it?can’t go any further.
(Note: I use this a lot on our Q&A calls!).
#2. First principles thinking
First-principles thinking — This is a scientific method of boiling the process down to the fundamental parts that?you know are true and building up from there.?
- A first principle — Is a basic assumption that cannot be deduced any further.
- Example #1 — Imagine you have three things: A motorboat with a skier behind it, A military tank, A bicycle.?What have you got? Most people would say the three things identified above. That’s normal thinking.
- Example #2 — Using first principles, somebody might answer “We’ve got a snowmobile”. People think they’re mad.?But, using first principles, let’s break these three items down into their constituent parts: Motorboat: motor, the hull?of a boat, and a pair of skis. Tank: metal treads, armor plates, and a gun. Bicycle: handlebars, wheels, gears, and a?seat. Snowmobile = Handlebars + seat from the bike + metal treads from the tank + the motor and skis from the boat.
- Deconstruct then reconstruct — This is the process of first principles thinking in a nutshell. It is a cycle of?breaking a situation down into the core pieces and then putting them all back together in a more effective way.
#3. Scientific method
The scientific method — Is a process of systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. It has created “science” since the 17th century.?
- Experimentation is everything — The ultimate test of something is a scientific experiment. If somebody tells you that “X doesn’t work” and through experimentation, you find X does work. X does work.
- My preferred tool — I use critical analysis to quickly unpack and decipher the information, I then boil it down to its first principles as a “thought experiment”, I then cross-reference it to its “nearest neighbor” in my mind to see if I’ve observed this pattern before, from here I view it through dozens of relevant frameworks and then form a hypothesis and confidence score. From here, the only way to really know is by experimentation!
#4. Strange latticework
So far we have — Shown you the importance of idiosyncratic thinking and how to form your own Unified Field? Theory by lacing together different mental models like: Critical thinking, First principles and Scientific method.??
? Strange latticework — This is your own unique collection of interconnected mental models. I’ve shown you? three major pillars of mine, but now you must form your own by adding mental models you see value in.?
? This is a lifetime process — You don’t take a few days to complete your Unified Field Theory and then go out? and apply it. You start by becoming aware of how you conceptualize the world (this module) and then you? critique your mental models, add to them, reconcile them and seek to improve them forever.??
? If you want some tips…?
