Richard Feynman’s Mental Models:
How to Think,
Learn,
and Problem-Solve Like a Nobel Prize-Winning Polymath (Learning how to Learn Book 23)
Written by
Peter Hollins, narrated by russell newton.
“Keep your eyes wide open,
approach everything with
circumspection,
don’t accept any truth without deep
thought,
expose and eradicate half truths and
demagoguery,
learn to wonder at the beauty of the
world around you and,
above all,
think!—about everything."
—Richard Feynman What do you know?
How do you know the things you know?
Could there be a better way to know,
and how could you find it out?
What don’t you know,
and how might you learn?
Could you be wrong,
and what would that look like?
What is,
and what faculties do you have to
perceive and understand it?
These are the sorts of questions that
most of us seldom get around to asking.
Epistemology is the field of inquiry
that asks about inquiry itself,
and questions the limits,
characteristics,
and sources of our knowledge.
Being able to think about how we are
thinking,
and know more about the process of
accumulating knowledge about the world,
requires a mindset shift all its own.
Nobel Prize–winning theoretical
physicist Richard Feynman is one of the
best-known and most-loved scientists of
our time.
He was involved in the development of
the atomic bomb and did pioneering work
in nanotechnology,
superfluidity,
and quantum computing.
What made Feynman so relatable,
however,
was his ability to popularize his work,
and his many books and autobiographies
captured the public imagination and
earned him a legacy in the public eye
as the face of intellectual rigor,
scientific progress,
and the powers of the rational mind.
But there is not some special access to
reality that is afforded to theoretical
physicists alone—what made
Feynman’s mindset and worldview so
compelling was how he thought,
not what he thought.
In other words,
he was consistently led to ask himself
about what he knew,
how he knew it,
and how he could do better and learn
more.
This is precisely what this book is
about.
Using the inimitable Feynman as our
guide and inspiration,
we will peer beyond the realm of
physics and engage with the underlying
nature of inquiry itself,
and how we might become students of
life,
in the very broadest sense.
Whatever your vocation,
skill set,
expertise,
special interest,
or personal challenges,
your life can be improved by learning
to learn.
No matter if you are primarily
concerned with personal relationships,
your occupation,
your life path in general,
or the grand,
overarching philosophical questions
that have teased and taunted even the
greatest minds,
you cannot help but improve your
situation by fine-tuning those
intellectual faculties that have the
sole job of orienting you in the
universe and helping you make sense of
it.
Consider this fine-tuning process a
kind of meta-skill that is transferable
to any area of life.
Learn how to observe,
to synthesize information,
to analyze,
to create,
to solve problems,
to extract meaning,
to ask questions and seek their
answers—in other words,
learning to think—and you will master
yourself and your world to whatever
extent is possible for a human being.
The ability to really think (and we
will soon see how most of us have a
complete misunderstanding of what
thinking is)
will never go out of fashion or lose
its value.
Your brain is a tool that will inspire
the elevated use of every other tool
you encounter.
It’s the kind of tool that possesses
a fascinating potential—the ability
to change and adapt itself as needed.
Like the physicists who have learned to
operate at the very vanguard of human
comprehension,
you,
too,
will be able to ask “What do I have
to be,
and how ought I to think,
to understand this?"
Think Like a Martian In an interview,
Feynman once shared a game that his
father had taught him as a child.
They’d sit at the dinner table
engrossed in discussion of a topic,
and his father would playfully ask
something like,
“Suppose we were Martians who had
come to the Earth for the first time
and were looking at things from the
outside,
having never seen them before.
What would that be like?
What would we see?"
On the one hand,
this is a simple child’s fancy,
but on the other,
it captures the spirit of scientific
inquiry.
It’s a “game” that asks us what
radically curious perception would look
like,
with zero preconceptions.
What would the world look like to you
if you had no pre-existing beliefs
about it,
no biases,
no prior understanding to cloud your
observations?
It’s a question that gets deeper and
deeper the more you think about it.
With fresh eyes,
everything would start to look wildly
interesting.
You would take nothing for granted.
For example,
being a Martian,
let’s suppose you never slept and had
no need for it.
You didn’t know what sleep was and
had never even imagined it before.
It was not only not a part of your
world,
it wasn’t even something you
acknowledged as being strange or
impossible.
Now imagine you came to Earth and
observed that within every
twenty-four-hour cycle,
human beings of every kind would fall
into a period of unconsciousness,
and they would close their eyes and
grow still and lie horizontal,
their breathing slowing.
You’d notice they’d get into big
pouches made out of foam and layers of
fabric,
roughly the same size as their bodies,
and stay there for a handful of hours.
Now,
if you were a scientist Martian,
you would have a load of questions!
Where would you even start?
You’d wonder what was happening and
why.
You’d be curious about what it felt
like to suddenly lose consciousness
this way,
and what purpose it was serving,
and what it meant that humans seemed to
vary in their practice of this habit.
You’d wonder what their experience
was like—what does it actually mean
to not be awake?
Does your brain still “work”?
Does your consciousness go off all at
once or does it happen gradually?
Why?
For a Martian who only knows one state
of being—wakefulness—thinking about
the idea of sleep must be like human
beings imagining some other,
third state of consciousness in
addition to sleep and wakefulness.
You have started with something
completely arbitrary,
obvious,
and kind of boring (sleep),
and in no time you are grappling with
very deep questions of what it means to
be conscious,
how we can actually know what another
person’s consciousness feels like,
and what we are really talking about
when we use an everyday word like
“awake” or “aware."
Now,
such questions can be fun if they
inspire a renewed appreciation for the
strangeness of life ...and can
certainly be good starting points for
writing science fiction!
But let’s go deeper.
Feynman gave an analogy where he
described the process of seeing a bird
in a tree.
Someone might ask you what bird it is,
and you could give its name.
Now,
does that mean you know what the bird
is?
Do you really grasp the meaning of what
is in front of you,
and can you say you have knowledge of
it?
Consider that the name you give will be
in your language.
You say the bird is a “lark,” but
an Italian speaker says it’s an
“allodola” and a Greek speaker says
it’s a “korydallos” and Hindi
speaker says it’s a “लवा”!
Maybe a Martian comes down and,
when asked what he sees,
blows air bubbles out a little funnel
on his head ... You get the picture.
Knowing the arbitrary symbols assigned
to a thing is not knowing it.
Recognizing certain patterns and
features and mapping them onto
pre-existing mental models is,
in a way,
the opposite of really knowing it.
Have you ever really seen a bird?
Look again.
What do you really see?
Imagine you have never been told
anything about birds and have stumbled,
brand new,
with a fresh and unused brain,
into the world.
There is a phenomenon unfolding in
front of you—a kind of movement of
light,
a noise,
a being.
What is it?
So,
if you were the Martian observing Earth
people sleeping,
go a step deeper and imagine that you
have no idea what “consciousness”
is,
and no pre-existing beliefs about this
thing called “the mind."
After all,
if someone were to ask you right now,
what is the mind,
do you think you could easily explain
it to them if they didn’t already
know?
The Martian question is a powerful tool
for getting beyond the limits of our
language.
Sometimes,
we think of learning as an accumulative
process—that we are ignorant,
and then we pile knowledge on top of
that ignorance,
adding to our understanding.
But in many ways,
really grasping the nature of reality
is just as much about taking away—by
peeling back the layers of assumption,
we clear our perception and look at
things afresh.
The biggest impediment to understanding
the world as it is,
then,
is the insistence that we already know
what it is.
We see someone lose consciousness in a
pouch made of foam and fabric,
and we confidently say,
“She’s gone to bed."
The language gives the impression we
have a more comprehensive understanding
of what has occurred ...but do we?
When you ask the Martian question and
try on a fresh perspective on things
you think you already understand,
you change the kinds of questions you
ask.
And that means you change the kind of
answers you expose yourself to,
and therefore the kinds of solutions
you can dream up.
You “think outside the box” because
you are able to see that there is a box
in the first place,
and you become curious about who put it
there and why,
and what it would mean if it didn’t
exist anymore.
The Martian Question in Real Life This
might seem great if you’re a
children’s author or a prize-winning
physicist,
but can it really be applied to real
life?
Do you have to reinvent the wheel every
time you want to make toast for
breakfast?
Consider the example of inventor Martin
Cooper,
the man who is credited with being the
“grandfather of the mobile phone."
He didn’t just create a fun new
gadget.
He looked at the world of telephone
communication as it was in the early
1970s,
and asked a question - “Why do you
have to always call a place—why
can’t you call a person?"
You see,
his shift in perspective was the very
idea that you could detach the ability
to make telephone calls from any
particular place—it seems obvious to
us today,
but it wasn’t back then.
He pioneered the idea of a phone as a
personal thing,
saying he wanted to create a
“personal telephone—something that
would represent an individual so you
could assign a number;
not to a place,
not to a desk,
not to a home,
but to a person."
Martin Cooper asked interesting
questions not because he was an
intelligent inventor and engineer,
or an expert in the field of
communications (he was both these
things),
but because he was able to look at the
situation with fresh eyes.
The question that defined his
career—and arguably the era of mobile
devices—was the kind of question a
five-year-old might ask.
Today,
we don’t think of this leap in
imagination as anything all that
special,
since it has become part of our world.
In the same way,
we don’t look around and see the vast
potential for ideas that we simply have
not had the insight to ask about until
now.
They are there,
though,
hiding in plain sight,
just beyond the same kind of simple,
even obvious question that Martin
Cooper asked himself.
Get in the habit of asking these kinds
of questions yourself.
What would this situation look like to
me if I knew nothing at all about it?
What assumptions,
expectations,
and foregone conclusions am I taking
for granted?
What if I remove those?
How might my life look to a complete
outsider?
To someone from a different planet,
a different country,
a different historical period?
What about a younger or older version
of myself?
When I answer a question with a term or
label,
do I actually know what this word means?
What is interesting here?
Could it be some other way?
Feynman’s Advice .- Play More!
One of the themes we will return to
again and again in this book is that of
intellectual newness,
freshness,
and lack of preconception.
This “childlike” state of mind is
not just a metaphor—children are in
many ways the natural experts of
learning,
since that is precisely what their
brains are designed to do.
Sadly,
we lose this knack for plain
perception,
curiosity,
and joy as we grow older and are taught
that learning is not about new things,
but about old,
dusty,
tried things!
When left to their own devices,
children don’t learn by forcing
themselves to sit in structured lessons
and making a big deal out of
unpleasant,
boring,
and deadly serious “school”—which
is somehow separate from the rest of
life.
Rather,
they play.
Constantly.
And in their play they learn vast
amounts about the world they inhabit.
Feynman is said to have come up with
his Nobel Prize–winning idea by
watching students spin plates in a
cafeteria in Cornell University,
where he worked at the time.
Finding a solution to a physics
question is something as mundane as
tossing plates around in a cafeteria,
which tells you just how powerful
playful curiosity can be.
According to Feynman,
“Physics disgusts me a little bit
now,
but I used to enjoy doing physics.
Why did I enjoy it?
I used to play with it.
I used to do whatever I felt like
doing—it didn’t have to do with
whether it was important for the
development of nuclear physics,
but whether it was interesting and
amusing for me to play with.
When I was in high school,
I’d see water running out of a faucet
growing narrower,
and wonder if I could figure out what
determines that curve.
I found it was rather easy to do.
I didn’t have to do it;
it wasn’t important for the future of
science;
somebody else had already done it.
That didn’t make any difference.
I’d invent things and play with
things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude.
Now that I am burned out and I’ll
never accomplish anything,
I’ve got this nice position at the
university teaching classes which I
rather enjoy,
and just like I read The Arabian
Nights for pleasure,
I’m going to play with physics,
whenever I want to,
without worrying about any importance
whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria
and some guy,
fooling around,
throws a plate in the air.
As the plate went up in the air I saw
it wobble,
and I noticed the red medallion of
Cornell on the plate going around.
It was pretty obvious to me that the
medallion went around faster than the
wobbling.
I had nothing to do,
so I start to figure out the motion of
the rotating plate.
I discovered that when the angle is
very slight,
the medallion rotates twice as fast as
the wobble rate.
Then I thought,
‘Is there some way I can see in a
more fundamental way,
by looking at the forces or the
dynamics?’ I don’t remember how I
did it,
but I ultimately worked out what the
motion of the mass particles is,
and how all the accelerations
balance... I still remember going to
Hans Bethe and saying,
‘Hey,
Hans!
I noticed something interesting.
Here the plate goes around so,
and the reason it’s two to one is
...’ and I showed him the
accelerations.
He said,
‘Feynman,
that’s pretty interesting,
but what’s the importance of it?
Why are you doing it?’ ‘Hah!’ I
said.
‘There’s no importance whatsoever.
I’m just doing it for the fun of
it.’ The diagrams and the whole
business that I got the Nobel Prize for
came from that piddling around with the
wobbling plate."
Relaxation,
daydreaming,
creativity,
and yes,
fun are not impediments to serious
intellectual activity—they are an
important part of it.
Your mind is naturally curious about
the world.
Curiosity and playfulness are a big
part of how it survives and evolves.
But who taught us that this survival
necessarily has to be a boring,
difficult thing?
Where did we learn that the real living
of life happens only when we are
working and working hard,
and that play and joy and curiosity are
only “recreation” and don’t count
for much?
Now,
before we go further,
it’s worth saying that Feynman’s
sentiments about “serious play” are
not about being lazy,
uncoordinated,
or simply sitting and waiting for a
fully formed prize to fall into your
lap.
There is certainly a time and place for
deep work,
effort,
and pushing through challenges to grow
our abilities.
Feynman believed,
then,
that it was a balance.
Work hard,
then let go.
Then work hard again.
Think of it a little like a muscle
growing stronger.
It’s essential to challenge the
muscle to work hard,
but it’s also essential to rest,
or just to spontaneously let the body
sometimes do what it feels is best
(maybe dancing?).
Many of us who are ambitious and/or
have been indoctrinated into the
ideology of “all work and no play”
will find it difficult to let go.
Learning to trust ourselves to be
spontaneous,
relaxed,
and joyful can take some practice.
If you’re someone who is suspicious
of Feynman’s “play more” advice
and want to know exactly what makes it
different from being a lazy bum,
then consider the following - Serious
play still requires domain knowledge.
Watching the spin and angle of rotating
plates is great and all,
but you’ll notice that Feynman had a
hefty dose of pre-existing domain
knowledge,
and so his question about why the
plates moved as they did could be
answered with the skill set he already
possessed.
Perhaps if he had been a musician,
he might have used that knowledge to
explore the concept of spin a little
differently!
Just because play is important,
it doesn’t mean it’s not worth
working really hard to fill up your
intellectual inventory with tools,
concepts,
ideas,
theories,
and skills.
When you have a burning question and
are genuinely curious about something,
then you can whip out these tools and
use them—all the better if you’re
very comfortable with using them
already!
Pablo Picasso was often accused of not
being a real painter since it appeared
that his more famous works could be
created by anyone without any artistic
talent or technique.
But look at some of his earlier
paintings,
and you will see that the modern artist
knew all the conventional rules of
painting (and was indeed a very
competent and accomplished painter)
before he broke them.
Feynman,
too,
had to be fully versed in the
conventions of his field before he
started to question them,
or make his own contributions.
Serious play is still focused.
There is value in rest and recuperation.
The composer Bach often had inspiration
strike him while he was not at work,
but outside walking in nature,
letting his intellect relax and loosen.
Serious play,
however,
is not the same as relaxation.
It is not distracted and
scattered—rather,
it is deeply,
deeply focused on one task.
Watch a child as they play and you will
see this focus.
They have seemingly infinite energy,
patience,
and attention for a task they are
engrossed in.
Replicate this by spending as much time
as you can on the things you’re
interested in.
Don’t expect world-changing insights
and paradigm shifts for something you
do half-heartedly or for a few minutes
once a week.
For Feynman,
everything in his life was physics
(even within the field,
he focused on those areas he was most
interested in).
He might not have been as effective if
he had tried to apply himself over many
disparate fields at the same time.
Serious play has a purpose.
When we are “killing time” or just
seeking mindless entertainment,
it is not the same as serious play.
This kind of activity is open-ended,
curious,
and joyful,
but it also has a definite point.
It’s not a free-for-all.
Feynman was just itching to understand
why the plates behaved as they did.
He was attacking the problem as though
it were a game,
but definitely one in which he was
trying to win,
trying to solve the puzzle.
Try to be purposeful in the same way.
A little healthy obsession is a
powerful thing!
An Unexpected Cure for Burnout
Granted,
most of us don’t want to completely
upend the paradigm we’re working in,
invent the next big thing,
or be breakout disruptors who leave a
big mark on the world (if you do,
though—great!).
Learning to play more and mastering the
kind of serious play that Feynman spoke
about is not just a way to create or
solve problems.
In Feynman’s own example,
he describes how returning to a
childlike sense of wonder and interest
was how he broke through a growing
sense of boredom and dullness in his
work.
In other words,
it was only when he could reconnect to
curious and engaged play that he broke
out of a rut and made real progress
(not,
incidentally,
in his office but while on a break in a
cafeteria).
It would be no exaggeration to say that
post-pandemic,
the world is burnt out.
Whether you are an entrepreneur or work
for someone else,
there’s a strong chance you’ve
experienced exhaustion and lack of
motivation.
It is no coincidence that messing
around with plate rotation in the
cafeteria “just for fun” is what
actually led to one of Feynman’s
greatest contributions.
He was able to work beyond his previous
limits because he’d allowed himself
to play.
If you are tired,
unmotivated,
or even bored,
it may be time for serious play to
breathe some life into your world.
You need a fresh perspective and the
energy that comes with genuinely being
excited and curious about something.
If you are legitimately fascinated and
having fun answering a question,
then you are instantly tapped into a
source of energy and power that can
never be rivaled by any other incentive.
Feynman didn’t care when fellow
scientists asked him what on earth he
was doing and what the point of it was!
That’s because he was driven from
within.
Because it was fun.
Try to play with your work again.
Whenever you want to,
in whatever direction you want to.
Give yourself permission to follow
trivial observations and ask
questions—even if they are
“useless” ones to ask.
Creative play can soothe stress,
make you more resilient,
and help you focus longer.
Too many of us appreciate the value of
hard work but completely undervalue our
own energy,
excitement,
and pleasure.
Here are a few examples to show what
that might look like even if you’re
not a physics genius -
•You’re learning the piano,
but getting demotivated and bored.
So you make sure that a few times every
week (unscheduled)
you just sit down at the piano and do
what you want.
It’s not about working through the
pieces your teacher has assigned you,
or ticking off a list of scale
exercises.
It’s just about you playing around
with the instrument.
You don’t know what you’ll do until
you try it.
When something piques your interest,
you follow that feeling of pleasure and
excitement.
You notice that even though it feels a
bit awkward at first,
you enjoy these sessions the most and
always end up playing for longer than
you thought you would!
•You’re trying to write a novel,
but continually hitting creative blocks
and finding yourself procrastinating.
You decide to start every planned
writing session with a crazy,
out-of-the-box game.
Whatever you feel like.
You write crazy dialogues between the
characters and envision them as Punch
and Judy puppets.
You put five minutes on a stopwatch and
see what happens when you write
continuously without thinking about it.
Or it seems like it would be fun to
deliberately try to write a really
awful book,
just because it would be funny and you
want to try it.
•Your job as a nurse is exhausting
and unrewarding.
You’re close to giving up and feel
desperately sad to have lost what you
thought was your life’s calling.
So you take all the pressure off
yourself,
quit your job,
and start volunteering at an old
folk’s home instead.
Money’s tight and you still have to
figure out what job you’ll do next,
but slowly,
by working more on your own terms,
you reconnect with what made you fall
in love with nursing in the first place.
Your energy stores fill up again.
You remember your vocation and passion.
When it comes time to apply for new
jobs,
your mindset has completely changed,
and you find yourself accepting a
completely different role from the one
you always thought you wanted.
Burnout is complex,
and the world of work is
complicated—not all of us have as
much opportunity to rest,
recuperate,
and play as we’d like.
Nevertheless,
if you are feeling flat about your
work,
uninspired,
or plain old bored,
then rest assured that there is always
a source of energy and motivation you
can tap into .- It’s called the joy
of curiosity,
and play will teach you how to find it
and how to re-energize yourself.
The Scientific Method According to
Feynman Learning to “see” the
world as a scientist sees it requires -
1. the presence of mind to suspend
everything you already think you know,
and 2. being able to look at what
you really observe with a sense of
childlike playfulness,
joy,
and deep curiosity.
These are not methods so much as
mindsets.
However,
when a certain mindset becomes natural
for you,
you can’t help but develop a method
for how you tend to approach the
project of learning,
understanding,
and making meaning.
This curiosity and open-mindedness is,
in fact,
the birthplace of what is arguably one
of mankind’s best inventions - the
scientific method.
The first thing to know about the
scientific method is that it’s not
really about science.
Rather,
it’s a way to structure our thinking,
and our approach to observation,
gathering data,
making predictions and theories,
and inching our way closer to truth and
understanding using reason and
empiricism.
Physicist Brian Cox once spoke to
students at Manchester University about
black holes,
and showed them a video clip from a
1960s lecture by Richard Feynman.
Cox introduced the clip by saying it
was simply the best explanation he had
yet encountered about the spirit of
science and what the scientific method
was all about.
The clip easily laid it all out in
under a minute.
According to Feynman,
“Now I’m going to discuss how we
would look for a new law.
In general,
we look for a new law by the following
process.
First,
we guess it.
Then we compute the consequences of the
guess,
to see ...if this law we guess is
right,
what it would imply,
and then we compare the computation
results to nature,
or we compare to experiment or
experience,
or compare it directly with
observations to see if it works.
If it disagrees with experiment,
it’s wrong.
In that simple statement is the key to
science.
It doesn’t make any difference how
beautiful your guess is,
it doesn’t matter how smart you are
who made the guess,
or what his name is ...If it disagrees
with experiment,
it’s wrong.
That’s all there is to it."
You can probably see why Feynman was
regarded as such a charismatic teacher
and communicator!
Let’s take a look at what he is
really saying about the scientific
method.
Step 1 .- To look for a new law,
first guess it.
Step 2 .- Compute the consequences of
the guess.
Step 3 .- Compare the computation
results to nature.
Step 4 .- If the results disagree with
nature,
then our guess is wrong.
Step 5 .- Repeat!
(Optional.)
So,
the scientific method is nothing more
complicated than making a guess about
reality and observing reality in many
different ways,
and if our observations don’t support
what we observe,
we can say something about our
guess—that is,
it wasn’t right.
If what we guess about reality turns
out to match what we observe (say,
in experimentation),
then we have reason to believe that our
guess holds some water.
We continue asking questions,
making observations,
and designing ways to test whatever we
guess next.
In more formal scientific terms,
the “guess” Feynman is talking
about is a hypothesis.
It can be based on what we already know
or what we have observed,
it can emerge because there are obvious
gaps in what we know,
or it can be driven by nothing more
than curiosity.
For published academics,
the name of the game is to look for
hypotheses that are relevant and
original.
But luckily for you,
as a layperson,
you are not beholden to such limits!
You can ask whatever question you
like—bearing in mind that making a
hypothesis is just a way to ask reality
a question.
Imagine that reality is a little like
one of those Magic 8 Balls that can be
shaken to reveal an answer to a
question.
Let’s say that this Magic 8 Ball only
has three possible responses to any
questions you ask - it can say yes,
no,
or try again.
The try again response could mean a few
things—your question is phrased
incorrectly,
there’s been an error along the way,
or you need to,
well,
try again.
Your guess might be true,
it might be false,
it might be both,
it might be neither.
When you ask a question of this great
universal Magic 8 Ball,
then,
you cannot ask it “Why do some people
not die of this virus that is killing
everyone?” or “What medicine will
help people infected with this virus?"
The ball will only tell you that any
one guess is correct,
incorrect,
or undecided.
You could ask “Do the people who
survive this virus have higher serum
bilirubin levels than those who
don’t?"
Now this “asking” can take the form
of an experiment.
You set up a research design where you
get three groups—people who have died
from the virus,
people who have the virus but have not
died from it,
and people who have not had the virus.
You then look at the blood work of all
three groups and ask what their serum
bilirubin levels are.
Since you have thousands of people to
measure and observe,
you use statistics to help you crunch
the numbers.
You put everything together and notice
a pattern—the people who have the
virus but are not dead do indeed have
higher bilirubin levels than both of
the other groups.
This result is essentially the Magic 8
Ball saying,
“Yes,
this is a pretty good guess."
But that doesn’t mean that that’s
the end of the story and we have
conclusively proven something forever.
It just means we have discovered some
evidence and support for our guess.
When it comes to hypotheses,
scientists always frame their questions
so that they can be disproven.
For example,
they make a claim (“bilirubin
protects people from the virus”)
and then set up an experiment so they
can observe if this guess matches up
with what really happens in the world.
Either they conclusively prove the
statement false,
or they find tentative evidence that it
might be true.
So,
we seek to find out whether a
hypothesis (guess)
can be rejected or not.
We advance in our knowledge about the
world,
in other words,
by ruling out what definitely isn’t
true,
with the goal of gradually and by
degree approaching what is true.
We begin with speculation,
and putting that speculation out into
the real world,
we see how it performs.
Then,
based on our results,
we can make another experiment,
and our next guesses and speculations
can be a little smarter than the
previous one.
Naturally,
real experimental science has strict
protocols to follow and its own logical
rules that help formalize this process.
Scientists have a whole range of
activities that count as
“observation,” and there is a
difference between theoretical and
applied sciences,
between different kinds of observations
(for example,
in the social sciences versus in
medicine),
and between different approaches that
use tools like mathematics,
statistics,
software,
or technology to extend and expand the
normal powers of human perception.
But in the end,
it all comes down to Feynman’s basic
recipe - make a guess,
observe what reality is actually doing,
compare the two,
rinse and repeat.
Another important thing to remember,
and Feynman does approach this in his
simplified explanation,
is that there is no ego in the
scientific method.
If we make a guess that turns out to
not explain reality in the way we
thought it might,
this isn’t a problem.
We haven’t made a mistake,
and that doesn’t mean we’re bad or
wrong or stupid.
Making “wrong” guesses is Doing
Science in the exact same way that
making “right” guesses is.
They both take us closer to the truth,
and therefore they both have value.
In the same way,
a guess is right because that’s what
it is—not because it’s been made by
someone who is good or intelligent or
has been right before.
A guess can be right and still be
something we don’t like,
and vice versa.
Finally,
a true scientist asks a question for
one reason and one reason only .- They
want to know the answer!
They don’t ask it because they want
to confirm that what they already
believe is true.
They are not looking for “proof”
that will permit them to continue
holding on to what they suspected was
the case all along.
Their first duty is to find something
that is true and correct.
If the process that leads them there
entails dozens of wrong guesses,
then so be it.
If human beings were doing science in
this way,
you would expect them to regularly
publish findings in which their
hypotheses were shown to be rejected by
their observations and experiments.
In reality,
though,
academic publishing contains an
improbably high level of papers showing
that the researchers’ guess just so
happened to be correct.
In 2005,
John Ioannidis,
a professor at Stanford School of
Medicine,
argued that the majority of papers
published in medical journals were
likely false positives (that is,
found evidence where there was none)
and could not be replicated.
The way the researchers were using
hypothesis testing,
and processing their results
statistically,
meant they tended to get exactly the
kind of response that was most
desired—i.e.,
support for their hypotheses.
In academia,
there is considerable pressure to
produce a certain kind of knowledge in
certain high profile and lucrative
research domains,
and the Great Replication Crisis showed
just what happens when we seek only to
find evidence for what we want to
believe is true,
rather than asking outright what is
true.
Questionable research practices,
“publish or perish” culture in
universities,
political pressure,
and the rampant misuse of statistics
are all impediments to what Feynman
would have considered truly
scientific—but that doesn’t mean
the principle itself is not sound.
On a smaller scale,
we are all at risk as flawed human
beings of succumbing to our blind
spots,
biases,
prejudices,
and pet theories.
We can convince ourselves we’re
encountering truth when we’re really
just creating something we like and
naming it truth because it’s
convenient.
Let’s zoom out and consider an
example from the non-scientific,
non-academic everyday realm.
Let’s say your car is acting up.
You don’t know much about cars,
but it’s been making a weird noise,
and one day you see a light on the
dashboard—one you don’t recognize,
with some weird circles and a cross
through them.
You look in the car’s manual to see
what the symbol means .- It says
“brake lights."
But what does that mean?
Your hypothesis - the brake light is
broken.
How do you test this hypothesis?
You could step outside of the car and
look with your own two eyes.
But then you see something
curious—both brake lights appear to
be working.
Okay,
time for a new hypothesis .- The brake
light is itself broken!
Now,
how are you going to test that?
And how can you determine whether this
phenomenon is connected with the noise
you’re hearing?
The next day,
you notice two things .- The brake
light is off,
and the noise has stopped.
Now,
this does offer some support for the
idea that the light and noise are
somehow connected.
But you haven’t proven it yet!
If you’re not a mechanic and can’t
get to one,
you might simply conduct an
“experiment” that consists in you
noticing whether the two phenomena ever
occur together.
Every time they do,
you gather more evidence for the idea
that something is going on,
and these two events have something to
do with it.
When one day the noise occurs without
the light being on,
you reason that they could in fact be
two independent phenomena ...
Sometimes,
the spirit of the scientific method
simply reveals itself in our ability to
stop ourselves from saying,
“It can’t be done,” so we can
instead actively ask,
“Can it be done?
How can it be done?” or even better,
“What is being done right now?
What do I observe and why is it
happening?"
The scientifically minded person has an
attitude of experiment—they don’t
make pronouncements and leave it at
that.
They frequently think,
“I wonder what will happen if....”
and follow through.
If something is unanswered,
mysterious,
or unknown,
they don’t shrug their shoulders or
choose the “answer” they like best
and cling to it.
They say to themselves,
“Let’s find out!"
While such examples of trial and error
and logical common sense seem almost
too obvious,
the fact is that we cannot really
arrive at knowledge and understanding
by any other way.
The same applies to things outside the
five senses.
In C. B. T. (cognitive behavioral
therapy),
counselors often advise people to test
their theories of reality,
rather than just assume that their
knee-jerk interpretation of events is
always correct.
If someone frowns at you on public
transport,
you could quickly conclude that
you’re weird and unlovable and
everyone knows it.
Or you could seek the most likely
explanation that requires the least
number of assumptions .- The person was
unhappy for some other reason that has
nothing to do with you.
But you don’t necessarily have to go
on faith.
You can test your “unlovable”
hypothesis the next time you go on
public transport.
Is what you observe in line with your
theory?
In other words,
is everyone you encounter frowning at
you or behaving as though they dislike
you?
If people are just minding their own
business and being perfectly neutral
about your presence,
you can safely conclude that your
original hypothesis was just plain
wrong.
Remember what Feynman said - “It
doesn’t make any difference how
beautiful your guess is,
it doesn’t matter how smart you are
who made the guess,
or what his name is ...If it disagrees
with experiment,
it’s wrong.
That’s all there is to it."
In our example,
it doesn’t matter how right your
hypothesis feels,
or how much your guess seems like it
fits your pre-existing worldview (that
is,
the one in which you are pretty sure
you’re unlovable).
It doesn’t matter how right you want
to be—if observation doesn’t align
with reality,
then your guess about reality is wrong,
and that’s all there is to it.
Summary
•Feynman was a brilliant scientist
because of how he thought,
not what he thought.
Whatever your vocation,
skill set,
expertise,
special interest,
or personal challenges,
your life can be improved by learning
to learn.
•To see the world anew and without
stale old misconceptions,
try to look at it as though you were a
Martian arriving on Earth for the very
first time.
What do you see?
What would the world look like to you
if you had no pre-existing beliefs
about it,
no biases,
no prior understanding to cloud your
observations?
•Knowing the arbitrary symbols
assigned to a thing is not knowing it.
Look beyond language.
•Relaxation,
daydreaming,
creativity,
and fun are not impediments to serious
intellectual activity,
but an important part of it.
Your mind is naturally curious about
the world.
Curiosity and playfulness is a big part
of how it survives and evolves.
Work hard,
let go,
then work hard again.
“Serious play” still requires
domain knowledge and is focused and
purposeful.
Burnout can be helped by this kind of
play.
•The scientific method is a way to
structure our thinking and our approach
to observation,
gathering data,
making predictions and theories,
and inching our way closer to truth and
understanding using reason and
empiricism.
•First make a guess about a new law.
Then compute the consequences of the
guess,
then compare the computation results to
nature.
If the results disagree with nature,
then your guess is wrong,
if they agree,
you have support for your hypothesis.
What you want to be true is irrelevant;
a scientist asks a question because
they want to know the answer,
not because they want to confirm what
they already believe is true.
This has been
Richard Feynman’s Mental Models:
How to Think,
Learn,
and Problem-Solve Like a Nobel Prize-Winning Polymath (Learning how to Learn Book 23) Written by
Peter Hollins, narrated by russell newton.