## The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking - Farnam Street ### The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking - Farnam Street ![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article4.6bc1851654a0.png) #### Metadata * Author: [[Search site]] * Full Title: The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking - Farnam Street * Category: #articles * URL: <https://fs.blog/great-talks/multidisciplinary-approach-thinking-peter-kaufman/?cmdid=OCW2FVT8GY1GFT> #### Highlights * So I tried to learn what Munger calls "the big ideas" from all the different disciplines. Right up front I want to tell you what my trick was, because if you try to do it the way he did it, you don't have enough time in your life to do it. It's impossible. Because the fields are too big, and the books are too thick. So my trick to learn the big ideas of science, biology, et cetera, was I found this science magazine called Discover magazine. Show of hands, anybody here ever heard of Discover magazine? A few people. Okay. And I found that this magazine every month had a really good interview with somebody from some aspect of science. Every month. And it was six or seven pages long. It was all in layperson's terms. The person who was trying to get their ideas across would do so using good stories, clear language, and they would never fail to get all their big ideas into the interview. I mean, if you're given the chance to be interviewed by Discover magazine and your field is nanoparticles or something, aren't you going to try your very best to get all the good ideas into the interview with the best stories? Okay. So I discovered that on the Internet there were twelve years of Discover magazine articles available in the archives. So I printed out twelve years times twelve months of these interviews. I had 144 of these interviews. And I put them in these big three-ring binders. Filled up three big binders. And for the next six months I went to the coffee shop for an hour or two every morning and I read these. And I read them index fund style, which means I read them all. I didn't pick and choose. This is the universe, and I'm going to own the whole universe. I read every single one. Now I will tell you that out of 144 articles, if I'd have been selecting my reading material, I probably would have read about fourteen of them. And the other 130? I would never in a million years read six pages on nanoparticles. Guess what I had at the end of six months? I had inside my head every single big idea from every single domain of science and biology. It only took me six months. And it wasn't that hard because it was written in layperson's terms. And really, what did I really get? Just like an index fund, I captured all the parabolic ideas that no one else has. And why doesn't anybody else have these ideas? Because who in the world would read an interview on nanoparticles? And yet that's where I got my best ideas. I would read some arcane subject and, oh my god, I saw, "That's exactly how this works over here in biology," or "That's exactly how this works over here in human nature." You have to know all these big ideas. Or there is an alternative, find somebody who did what I did and just get all the ideas from them. Now when I was your age and I was in school, I thought the asymmetry of it was very unfair because I had to do all the work. So every time I go back and meet with a group of students, I change the asymmetry around. I did all the work for you. * Yes—if I put this bottle of water on this table, Newton's Third Law of Motion says that if the bottle pushes down on the table with "force x," and it also strangely says that the table pushes back with equal "force x." That's very strange. But you know how long that's been true? 13.7 billion years, that's been true. Now what if I push down twice as hard, what does the table do? Well, if I push down twenty-one and a half times as hard? What does the table do? Twenty-one and a half! Okay. Now is there a good word, a catchall word to describe what we're talking about here when this pushes down and this thing pushes back? Yeah, it's reciprocation, isn't it? But it's not mere reciprocation. It's perfectly mirrored reciprocation. The harder I push, the harder it pushes back. Does everybody buy that? That's bucket number one. That's how the world works. It's mirrored reciprocation. Everything in the inorganic universe works that way. * Okay. We go to bucket number one. We ask, what's the most powerful force in bucket number one? I'm going to quote Albert Einstein again. He said, "The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." But that's not all he said about compound interest. He not only said that it's the most powerful force in the universe, he said it's the greatest mathematical discovery of all time. He said it's the eighth wonder of the world. And he said that those who understand it get paid by it and those who don't pay for it. He said all these things, Albert Einstein, about compound interest. Now what's a good working definition of compound interest? I will propose one. You can have your own, but this is mine. I say compound interest is dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. Is that a fair definition? Alright? I think that's the answer from bucket number one. The most powerful force that could be potentially harnessed is dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. We go to bucket number two. 3.5 billion years of biology. What's the most powerful force in 3.5 billion years of biology? It's the machine of evolution. How does it work? Dogged incremental constant progress over a long time frame. This is the beauty of deriving things multidisciplinary. You can't be wrong! You see these things lined up there like three bars on a slot machine. Boy, do you hit the jackpot. What do you think we're going to find when we go to bucket number three? 20,000 years of human experience on earth. You want to win a gold medal in the Olympics. You want to learn a musical instrument. You want to learn a foreign language. You want to build Berkshire Hathaway. What's the formula? Dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. Look how simple this is. # The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking - Farnam Street ![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article4.6bc1851654a0.png) ## Metadata - Author: [[Search site]] - Full Title: The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking - Farnam Street - Category: #articles - URL: https://fs.blog/great-talks/multidisciplinary-approach-thinking-peter-kaufman/?cmdid=OCW2FVT8GY1GFT ## Highlights - So I tried to learn what Munger calls “the big ideas” from all the different disciplines. Right up front I want to tell you what my trick was, because if you try to do it the way he did it, you don’t have enough time in your life to do it. It’s impossible. Because the fields are too big, and the books are too thick. So my trick to learn the big ideas of science, biology, et cetera, was I found this science magazine called Discover magazine. Show of hands, anybody here ever heard of Discover magazine? A few people. Okay. And I found that this magazine every month had a really good interview with somebody from some aspect of science. Every month. And it was six or seven pages long. It was all in layperson’s terms. The person who was trying to get their ideas across would do so using good stories, clear language, and they would never fail to get all their big ideas into the interview. I mean, if you’re given the chance to be interviewed by Discover magazine and your field is nanoparticles or something, aren’t you going to try your very best to get all the good ideas into the interview with the best stories? Okay. So I discovered that on the Internet there were twelve years of Discover magazine articles available in the archives. So I printed out twelve years times twelve months of these interviews. I had 144 of these interviews. And I put them in these big three-ring binders. Filled up three big binders. And for the next six months I went to the coffee shop for an hour or two every morning and I read these. And I read them index fund style, which means I read them all. I didn’t pick and choose. This is the universe, and I’m going to own the whole universe. I read every single one. Now I will tell you that out of 144 articles, if I’d have been selecting my reading material, I probably would have read about fourteen of them. And the other 130? I would never in a million years read six pages on nanoparticles. Guess what I had at the end of six months? I had inside my head every single big idea from every single domain of science and biology. It only took me six months. And it wasn’t that hard because it was written in layperson’s terms. And really, what did I really get? Just like an index fund, I captured all the parabolic ideas that no one else has. And why doesn’t anybody else have these ideas? Because who in the world would read an interview on nanoparticles? And yet that’s where I got my best ideas. I would read some arcane subject and, oh my god, I saw, “That’s exactly how this works over here in biology,” or “That’s exactly how this works over here in human nature.” You have to know all these big ideas. Or there is an alternative, find somebody who did what I did and just get all the ideas from them. Now when I was your age and I was in school, I thought the asymmetry of it was very unfair because I had to do all the work. So every time I go back and meet with a group of students, I change the asymmetry around. I did all the work for you. - Okay. We go to bucket number one. We ask, what’s the most powerful force in bucket number one? I’m going to quote Albert Einstein again. He said, “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.” But that’s not all he said about compound interest. He not only said that it’s the most powerful force in the universe, he said it’s the greatest mathematical discovery of all time. He said it’s the eighth wonder of the world. And he said that those who understand it get paid by it and those who don’t pay for it. He said all these things, Albert Einstein, about compound interest. Now what’s a good working definition of compound interest? I will propose one. You can have your own, but this is mine. I say compound interest is dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. Is that a fair definition? Alright? I think that’s the answer from bucket number one. The most powerful force that could be potentially harnessed is dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. We go to bucket number two. 3.5 billion years of biology. What’s the most powerful force in 3.5 billion years of biology? It’s the machine of evolution. How does it work? Dogged incremental constant progress over a long time frame. This is the beauty of deriving things multidisciplinary. You can’t be wrong! You see these things lined up there like three bars on a slot machine. Boy, do you hit the jackpot. What do you think we’re going to find when we go to bucket number three? 20,000 years of human experience on earth. You want to win a gold medal in the Olympics. You want to learn a musical instrument. You want to learn a foreign language. You want to build Berkshire Hathaway. What’s the formula? Dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. Look how simple this is.