Confidence and Validity
Santa Fe Institute Board of Trustees Chair Michael Mauboussin interviewed Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. The wide-ranging conversation talks about disciplined intuition, causality, base rates, …
Wisdom
Andy Benoit: Exploiting Unrecognized Simplicity
Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities. Andy Benoit
The Two Types of Knowledge: The Max Planck/Chauffeur Test
Charlie Munger, the billionaire business partner of Warren Buffett, frequently tells the story below to illustrate how to distinguish between the two types of knowledge: real knowledge and pretend …
Garrett Hardin: The Other Side of Expertise
From Garrett Hardin‘s mind-blowingly awesome Filters Against Folly. In our highly technological society we cannot do without experts. We accept this fact of life, but not without anxiety. There …
Marcus Aurelius: You Have One Life To Live
The excerpt is from this version online, although if you’re going to read it, get the Hayes translation. Our mental powers should enable us to perceive the swiftness with which all things vanish …
Charlie Munger: Adding Mental Tools to Your Toolbox
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said: “The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought.” Those ‘calculations’ are the tools we have available to …
Seneca on Wisdom
In Seneca’s Morals: Of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger, and Clemency, the famous stoic philosopher Seneca, who brought us combinatorial creativity, illuminates real wisdom. Wisdom is a right …
5 Life Changing Books
Reading is important. It is a way to fill in the gaps left by formal education and a meaningful way to better ourselves. Reading is the raw material of the mind. What you put in shapes what you see …
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
“College doesn’t make fools; it develops them. It doesn’t make bright men; it develops them. A fool will turn out a fool, whether he goes to college or not, though he’ll probably turn out a different …
A Few General Principles Associated With Wise Behavior
Paul Baltes once described wisdom as “a topic at the interface between several disciplines: philosophy, sociology, theology, psychology, political science, and literature, to name a few.” …
The Best Books of 2013: Your 10 Overall Favorites
From philosophy and friendship to idea creation and building daily routines. While I never had any doubt that Farnam Streeters are the smartest people on the internet, the data once again tells that …
The Three Disciplines of Stoicism: Life Lessons from a Roman Emperor
The stoics used their understanding of perception, action, and will to create an operating system for life. The Three Disciplines A common thread central to the philosophy of the meditations and …
The Hidden Power of Wisdom That Never Expires
The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence, a book by Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658), offers three hundred aphorisms for understanding the world and creating advantageous divergence. Most of …
Karl Pillemer, Interview No. 2
Karl Pillemer is the author of 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. I posted some of the key lessons from his book last week. As part of my ongoing series of …
30 Lessons For Living
What can we learn from those near the end of their lives about living today? Karl Pillemer wrote 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans to provide us with practical …
James T. Mangan: 14 Ways to Acquire Knowledge
Brainpickings put me onto this timeless wisdom from famous eccentric James T. Mangan’s 1936 book You Can Do Anything! PRACTICE Consider the knowledge you already have — the things you really …