The Great Mental Models: Illustrated Book Summary

Volume 1 - General Thinking Concepts

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The Great Mental Models:

This is an illustrated summary of the first book in Shane Parrish’s ‘The Great mental Models’ series, including 12 exclusive illustrated ideas.

The series contains four books:

Volume 1 — General Thinking Concepts
Volume 2 — Physics, Chemistry, and Biology
Volume 3 — Systems and Mathematics
Volume 4 — Economics and Art

I’ll be creating a visual summary for each one — accessible only to paid subscribers.

Upgrade below to get exclusive access to this and all future illustrated book summaries (+ all 2025 subscription revenue will be donated to charity).

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Contents:

1. The Map is Not The Territory

2. Circle of Competence

3. Falsifiability

4. First Principles Thinking

5. Thought Experiment

6. Necessity and Sufficiency

7. Second-Order Thinking

8. Probabilistic Thinking

9. Correlation vs. Causation

10. Inversion Principle

11. Occam’s Razor

12. Hanlon’s Razor

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The Map is Not The Territory:

We use maps every day to help us navigate the world.

They reduce complexity to simplicity.

But even the best maps are imperfect. They are reductions of what they represent. This is by design. If a map were to represent the territory with perfect fidelity, it would no longer be useful to us. It would cease to be a map.

Mental models are maps that help guide our thinking, and they often allow us to make better decisions more easily — but they lack fidelity and should be used carefully.

The real world is messy. Maps can be helpful, but they are flawed.

It’s important to remember this moving forward.

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