Archive
23 concepts. Search, filter, or pick one at random.
- ·Mental Models
Second-Order Thinking
What actually happens after what you thought would happen has happened?
- ·Cognition
The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: Why Do You See It Everywhere?
Have you ever learned a new word and suddenly started hearing it everywhere?
- ·Mental Models
The Lindy Effect: Time's Ultimate Stress Test
The longer something has survived, the longer you can expect it to stick around.
- ·Cognition
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, remember, and interpret information in a way that aligns with what you already believe.
- ·Cognition
The Dunning–Kruger Effect
The less you know about a subject, the easier it is to overestimate your own knowledge.
- ·Cognition
Availability Heuristic
We judge how common something is based on how easily examples come to mind.
- ·Cognition
The Zeigarnik Effect
Unfinished tasks stick in our memory much more strongly than completed ones.
- ·Cognition
Cognitive dissonance
When action and belief don't align, an uncomfortable tension arises – and we'll do almost anything to resolve it.
- ·Language and perception
Pareidolia
The tendency to see faces and patterns in clouds, power outlets, and rust spots.
- ·Language
Sonder
The realization that every passing stranger has an inner life as complex as your own.
- ·Language
Semantic Satiation
Say the same word out loud thirty times – and it suddenly loses its meaning.
- ·Language
Tsundoku
The Japanese word for buying books and letting them pile up unread.
- ·Science
Entropy
In a closed system, disorder tends to increase over time.
- ·Science
The Doppler Effect
Sound and light change frequency depending on whether the source is moving toward or away from you.
- ·Science
The Fermi Paradox
The universe is vast and ancient. Where is everybody?
- ·Science
Emergence
The whole can have properties that none of its parts possess.
- ·Philosophy
Occam's razor
When multiple explanations are possible, the simplest one is usually the best to test first.
- ·Philosophy
The Ship of Theseus
If every plank on a ship is replaced—is it still the same ship?
- ·Philosophy
Stoicism
Some things are within our control, others are not. Living wisely begins with telling them apart.
- ·History
Pyrrhic Victory
A victory so costly that it is barely distinguishable from a defeat.
- ·History
Tulip Mania
In the 1630s, the Dutch paid more for a single tulip bulb than for a house.
- ·Economics
Tragedy of the Commons
When a resource is free for everyone, it risks being depleted for that very reason.
- ·Economics
The Sunk Cost Effect
We stick with something simply because we've already poured time, money, or emotion into it.