XMind

How to Think Straight

1. How Mind Works

   1. Disciplines

      1. Cognitive Science

      2. Neural Science

      3. Psychology

      4. Evolutionary Psychology

      5. Machine Learning

      6. Artificial Intelligence

   2. Theories

      1. Bounded Rationality; Simple Heuristics that Makes us Smart

      2. Social Animal

      3. Language as a window into Human Mind

      4. Decision Theory

      5. Reasoning, Deductive and Inductive

      6. Argumentation Theory

      7. Bayesian Inference

2. Cognitive Fallacies

   1. Fallacies in Human Reasoning

      1. Informal Fallacies

         1. e.g. False Dilemma

         2. e.g. Correlation doesn't imply Causation

         3. e.g. Post Hoc

         4. e.g. Begging the Question

      2. Formal Fallacies

         1. e.g. Denying the Antecedent

         2. e.g. Affirming the Consequent

         3. e.g. Affirming a Disjunct

      3. Cognitive Biases

         1. e.g. Bandwagon Effect

         2. e.g. Authority Bias

         3. e.g. Confirmation Bias

         4. e.g. Framing Effect

         5. e.g. Wishful Thinking

   2. Fallacies in daily Judgment and Decision Making

      1. Judgment and Decision Making

         1. e.g. Cognitive Dissonance and Self-Justification

         2. e.g. Representativeness, Availability and Anchoring

         3. e.g. Paradox of Choice

      2. Behavioral Economics

         1. Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes

         2. Predictably Irrational

         3. Black Swan

3. Critical Thinking

   1. What's the problem?

      1. Set a yardstick first, and then measure everything against it.

   2. What're the assumptions?

      1. Unconscious Assumptions are Dangerous

         1. It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so.

      2. How to Smoke Out the Assumptions?

         1. By asking questions

            1. Routine Question: "It doesn't have to ..."; "Do we have to ... ?"

            2. Routine Question: "This doesn't necessarily mean ..."

            3. Routine Question: "What would happen if we don't do this?"

         2. By formalizing the reasoning process

            1. Specify the Premise(s).

            2. Look at the Conclusion(s).

            3. Does the conclusion(s) necessarily follow the Premise(s)?

         3. By learning critical-thinking

            1. e.g. False analogy

            2. e.g. Problem of Induction

   3. What're the facts?

      1. If you don't have knowledge, you have assumptions.

      2. Do your homework, get the facts right.

      3. Routine Question: "Really?"

   4. Where's the logic?

      1. Routine Question: "... doesn't necessarily mean ...!"

      2. Routine Question: "It doesn't have to be ... to ...!"

      3. Routine Question: "... and why is that?"

   5. What's the conclusion?

      1. Avoid jumping to conclusions; see Cognitive Shortcut.

      2. Routine Question: "So?", "Then?", "So what?"

4. Problem Solving

   1. Problems

      1. Problem often known and well defined

         1. e.g. Math

         2. e.g. Algorithms

      2. You figure out what the problem is

         1. Problems we face everyday

            1. e.g. financial decisions

            2. e.g. time management

            3. e.g. career

            4. e.g. relationship

         2. Judgment and Decision Making in general

         3. Practical Problems

         4. Complex Decisions

   2. Techniques

      1. Routine Question: "What's the Problem?"

      2. Heuristics

         1. e.g. Trial and Error

         2. e.g. Analogy

         3. e.g. Specialization

         4. e.g. Simplification

         5. e.g. Working Backwards

         6. e.g. Brainstorming

         7. e.g. Root Cause Analysis

         8. e.g. Lateral Thinking

      3. Decision Making

         1. Pros and Cons Analysis

         2. Key Factor Analysis

         3. Choice under Uncertainty