Thinking - Abhishek Chakraborty

The Importance of Doubt in Scientific Thinking

Even though it’s safe to assume that the field of medicine is the epitome of scientific method, ironically, it wasn’t always so. It was a field marred with arrogance, hubris, and a sheer lack of scientific rigour. Most importantly, what medicine lacked was doubt, a necessity in scientific thinking.

The Limits of Our Reasoning

Statistical concepts such as regression are confounding. While they have an explanation, they don’t have any cause. Our mind is strongly biased toward causal explanations and cannot swallow the reason for something being “mere statistics.”

Smart People Should Disagree With You

Being contrarian is often critical to the process of becoming massively valuable. If you can bet on something that nobody agrees with, and win, there’s nothing like it. I’ve written on this topic at length, but turns out that wasn’t enough. It’s still easily misunderstood, which is a shame.

Be an Imperfectionist

Perfectionism is either an excuse to explain why you can’t get something done, or it’s a way (for bad managers) to justify why employees should work harder. It’s stupid and callous, and—as we’ll soon discover—not a good strategy, especially if you want to get things done.

The Real Reasons are Hidden Underneath

Often what we understand “by default” isn’t the real reason behind a lot of everyday activities. Hidden motivations are lurking beneath the superficial reasoning.

Working Hypothesis: How to Avoid Fooling Yourself

Facts don’t change our minds. The mind is stubborn, and no matter how strong the facts are, we undervalue evidence that contradicts our beliefs and overvalue evidence that confirms them. Ironically, the same brain that empowers rational thinking also skews our judgments.

Thought Experiments

Thought Experiments help us engage in deliberate reasoning by exploring various circumstances, and predict their implications without conducting any real life experiments. Mastering thought experiments can help us stretch our minds by confronting difficult questions.

Optionality: When More is Merrier

When you have options, you don’t have to care about the average outcome—only the favourable outcomes. Because your wins far outweigh your losses. You get a larger payoff when you are right, which also makes it unnecessary to be right too often.