Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 3617 answers
Take two schemas you currently hold that feel contradictory — maybe 'I should plan carefully' and 'I should trust my intuition.' Write each one out fully, including the contexts where it works best and the evidence supporting it. Now attempt to integrate them. Write down your first integration.
Reading this lesson and concluding that integration is too dangerous to attempt. The failure modes described here are not reasons to avoid integration — they are specific, diagnosable errors that you can learn to detect and correct. The goal is not to stop integrating. The goal is to integrate.
Forcing integration where it does not exist or oversimplifying to achieve coherence.
Define in advance what evidence would cause you to abandon a course of action.
Define in advance what evidence would cause you to abandon a course of action.
Pick one active project, commitment, or investment you're currently pursuing. Write down three specific, measurable conditions under which you would abandon it. Be concrete: a date, a number, a threshold. Now show them to someone else and ask: 'Would you hold me to these?' The discomfort you feel.
Setting kill criteria so vague they never trigger ('if things aren't going well') or so extreme they're functionally irrelevant ('if we lose all our customers'). Useful kill criteria live in the uncomfortable middle — specific enough to fire, realistic enough to actually happen. The other failure.
Define in advance what evidence would cause you to abandon a course of action.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Select a real decision you are currently facing — something with at least moderate stakes. Write it down in one sentence. Now list every decision framework from Phase 23 that could plausibly apply: decision matrix, reversibility test, satisficing versus maximizing, regret minimization, opportunity.
The most common failure mode is framework lock-in — defaulting to the same decision framework for every decision regardless of fit. You learn the weighted decision matrix, it works well once, and now every decision gets a matrix. This is the meta-decision equivalent of the law of the instrument:.
Choosing which framework to apply requires a meta-framework.
Resistance to certain feedback signals it touches an important blind spot.
Resistance to certain feedback signals it touches an important blind spot.
Resistance to certain feedback signals it touches an important blind spot.
Identify one piece of feedback you've received in the last year that you dismissed, argued against, or rationalized away. Write it down word for word — or as close as you can recall. Now write down the first three reasons you rejected it. Read those reasons aloud. Are they evaluations of the.