We all have mental models we employ to make sense of the world. The author classifies as a mental model “any concept that helps explain, analyze, or navigate the world” and states that there are “tens of thousands of mental models”. Following the wisdom of Charlie Munger who stated in a 1995 speech:
“80 or 90 important models will carry about 90% of the freight in making you a worldly?wise person.”
The author creates a set of mental models that come up repeatedly in day-to-day decision making, problem solving, and truth seeking. This list contains 189 models of which 106 the author claims occur frequently or occasionally.
Going through this rather extensive list makes one realize how many situations we humans need to deal with and the vast variety of constructs we employ to both reason and rationalize. The exercise is itself useful just to remind oneself of the limits of human cognition.