Summary
An in-depth look at all facets of a Nobel Prize winner and polymath’s life (in its entirety): his career, his work, his relationships, his beliefs, his values and his learning and teaching methods. A bit long-winded at times, but worth the read.
Key Takeaways
- Do what excites you and work on problems for which you have a certain edge to increase the odds of success.
- Time is limited. One cannot pursue multiple occupations simultaneously. Drop hobbies when they start taking too much time away from your calling.
- Read as much and as widely as possible. Anything can be learnt efficiently from books.
- Simon: “Learning requires knowledge of results (reinforcement). The student learns from doing, and only from doing.”
- Start with the simple and progress toward the more complex, while having a goal that keeps you busy indefinitely.
- Change the way you look at or describe a problem to find a (alternative) solution. Similarly, problems can appear easier or more difficult depending on how they are phrased or viewed.
- Remain flexible by exposing yourself to new ideas. Your environment matters. Have energy, humility and dedication to your craft, work with such kindred spirits and enjoy a great life.
What I got out of it
A great look at the life of a Nobel Prize winner and polymath that reinforced many of my beliefs. It showed me what is possible with a dedication to one’s craft and the constant learning across domains while maintaining healthy relationships, a 50-year+ marriage and various hobbies.
Reading books is one of the most beneficial things to do in life (“it’s not a hobby but one of life’s main occupations”) and I’ll, once again, make more time for it.
Summary notes
On life, fulfilment and success
A handful of choices led to the career Simon had. Opportunities that were so attractive and obvious that the choices – rather than decisions as he did not search for alternatives – were simple.
Simon’s (1) attitude towards competition and (2) criteria at specific choice points was more important than money when deciding his career.
Simon: “I advise my graduate students to pick a research problem that is important (so that it will matter if it is solved), but one for which they have a secret weapon that gives some prospect of success…My students are likely to come in first only by having access to some knowledge or research methods the others do not have.”
Simon: “When I did sense something exciting and fundamental, I sniffed my way toward it and became involved in it almost without plan or forethought.”
Matthew Effect: one wins awards mainly for winning awards. Once one becomes well known, one’s name surfaces automatically as soon as an award committee assembles.
Simon: “Time is the tyrant. One cannot be loyal to two occupations any more than one can to two lovers. Whenever I found that one of my hobbies was seriously taking attention from my research, I dropped it.”
Simon: “Reading is one of life’s main occupations. As with eating, so with reading, I am nearly omnivorous. But my stomach for words is hardier than my stomach for rich foods, so I do not ration myself.”
Principles (1) serve as heuristics to guide one’s life choices and (2) help rationalize, explain or provide excuses for choices made in the past.
Simon: “Since my world picture approximates reality only crudely, I cannot aspire to optimize anything; at most, I can aim at satisficing.”
Simon: “If there are goals, they do not so much guide the search as emerge from it.”
Pasteur: “Accidents happen to the prepared mind.”
Simon: “How does a mind become prepared?”
Knowledge, observations of reality and exposure to diverse thoughts, so one’s thinking remains flexible.
When data does not fit our (mental) model, we have to decide (1) what to change within the model or (2) to discard the model.
On decision-making and problem-solving
Simon: “Thirty years of subsequent research has confirmed that means-ends analysis is a key component of human problem-solving skill.”
Means-ends analysis is accomplished by comparing the problem goal with the present situation, and noticing one or more differences between them…The observed difference jogs memory for an action that might reduce or eliminate it. The action is taken, a new situation is observed, and, if the goal has still not been reached, the whole process is repeated.
Experts, human and computer, solve problems not by searching selectively but by recognizing the relevant cues in situations similar to those they have experienced before.
Heuristics (“rules of thumb”) allow us to search selectively and settle for a satisfactory move.
Start with the simple and progress toward the more complex, while having a goal that keeps you busy indefinitely.
Simon: “Changing the representation of a problem could sometimes greatly facilitate its solution.”
On human nature, bounded rationality and satisficing
Reasonable and truthful people can perceive the same set of events in different ways.
Simon: “You do not change people’s opinions by defeating them with logic. People do not feel obliged to agree just because they cannot reply at the moment.”
Simon: “(1) human beings are able to achieve only a very bounded rationality, and (2) as one consequence of their cognitive limitations, they are prone to identify with subgoals.
Fundamental problems in every society:
- People have to be motivated to contribute to society, to produce.
- They have to be protected if they are unable to take care of themselves adequately.
Simon: “Natural selection only predicts that survivors will be fit enough, that is, fitter than their losing competitors; it postulates satisficing, not optimizing.”
Rational decisions are conclusions reached from certain premises. Therefore, the behaviour of a rational person can be controlled when the value and factual premises upon which the decisions are based are specified.
When entering a new culture or new industry, learn the ways of the ‘natives’ to gain their respect and add tools to your toolkit. Don’t remain fixed in your ways and thinking and think you know better.
On learning
Your education is in your own hands.
Ask for advice after you have tried to figure it out yourself first.
Self-instruction breeds the courage, confidence and skill to master new areas when needed in life.
Books are the greatest source of knowledge.
They do not provide the answers directly, but you have to dig them out yourself.
Newspapers are a waste of time.
Memorization of facts and information is not knowledge.
One acquires knowledge when one understands it and is capable of applying it.
Simon: “Learning requires knowledge of results (reinforcement). The student learns from doing, and only from doing.”
Explore many domains.
Simon studied: mathematics, the physical, social and biological sciences, economics, psychology, ancient history, some analytic geometry and calculus, and physics.
Learn to read critically, using one book to argue with another.
Environment matters greatly. Many things are learnt by mere exposure.
To be able to read in foreign languages, one must read a lot in foreign languages.
- Start with simple reading books that introduce vocabulary gradually, with little attention to grammar and almost no reference to a dictionary.
- Gradually increase the difficulty of the reading material.
- Never cease reading for pleasure (i.e. extensive reading)
Simon was able to read professionally in more than twenty languages and literature for pleasure in half a dozen by the end of his career.
To learn to write or speak in foreign languages, one must write or speak (and listen) a lot in foreign languages.
Simon: “Language courses should concentrate on developing reading skills and, above all, on teaching students how to build these skills themselves, simply by reading.”
Simon: “The great enemy of foreign language learning is a sense of shame, an inability or unwillingness to become a child again and to let one’s inadequacies show.”
Innovation comes not from idea generation, but from dissemination. This can be done by talking and writing and is greatly facilitated by building institutional homes for them.
Simon’s Travel Theorem: anything that can be learned by a normal American adult on a trip to a foreign country (of less than one year’s duration) can be learned more quickly, cheaply, and easily by visiting the (San Diego) Public Library, especially if one does not have fluent knowledge of the country’s native language.
Start with understanding simple processes and task domains, then tackle gradually more complex ones.
On teaching
How to instil curiosity into people:
- Don’t lecture to a class unless the class is listening.
- They only listen if they think they can understand it and it seems relevant.
- They listen better when you talk loudly.
- Observe their facial expressions, eye movements and body language. Pro tip: see if the prettiest girl in the room is paying attention.
- Teaching is not entertainment, but it is unlikely to be successful unless it is entertaining.
- Talk from notes; don’t read lectures. Better not to write them out.
- How much you cover is irrelevant. You begin where the students are prepared to begin and take them as far as you can without losing them.
- Prepare notes for more material than you can possibly cover so you don’t run out of material. This is mainly for your own emotional state.
- Start every class by giving students the opportunity to ask questions about their reading, previous sessions or about anything. Compile these questions (and answers) in a document so you can give these to your next batch of students.
- Students don’t learn by being lectured at; they learn by thinking hard, solving problems and dissecting proofs. Requiring them to write briefs was the most important component of our teaching.
- After students have thought hard about a topic, a lecture can help them sort out and organize their thoughts. Enlightenments, like accidents, happen only to prepared minds. If students have thought about something, you can discuss it profitably in class; without the preparation, it is just a bull session.
- Don’t repeat the contents of a textbook in class. This simply reinforces the habit of students to not read books.
A good starting point for business education: read biographies of outstanding managers and learn their styles and behaviours.
On science
Simon: “Theories, however plausible and “obviously” valid, can be destroyed totally by the obstinate facts of the real world.”
Everything has to be explored, tested, before it could be accepted or rejected.
Even without relevant experience, you can add value to any organisation by assembling existing knowledge in clear English (or other languages) and using metaphors and analogies to explain. Only intelligence and literary skills are required.
Learn about human behaviour. Many aspects of organisations and society can then be understood.
Simon: “Bounded rationality applies as fully to individual decision making as to organizational decision making.”
Organizations can be understood by applying to them what you knew of human behaviour generally. When specific experience was lacking, metaphors and analogies might fill the gap.
Another way to add value to the world: deeply examine books in one field and apply that knowledge in another context.
Simon: “Complex behaviour can be reduced to neural processes only in successive steps, not in a single leap. Physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology accept in principle that the most complex events can be reduced to the laws of quantum physics, but they carry out the reduction in stages, inserting four or five layers of theory between gross biological phenomena and the sub-microscopic events of elementary particles.”
Simon’s research strategy:
- Identify significant intellectual tasks that people performed, either for recreation or daily occupations.
- Once understanding had reached the point where computer programs to perform the tasks could be written, graduate students and faculty members undertook to construct these programs and to test them for effectiveness or for conformity to evidence of human performance.
- When simpler domains of the mind were understood, undertake increasingly complex ones.
The advantage of science: “in the long run (no more than centuries), the winner succeeds not by superior rhetoric, not by the ability to convince or dazzle a lay audience, not by political influence, but by the support of data, facts as they are gradually and cumulatively revealed. As long as its factual veridicality is unchallenged, one can remain calm about the future of a theory.”
Simon: “Scientific discovery is incremental. An explanation for a particular act of discovery must take everything that has gone before as initial conditions.”
One reason to run experiments: to be surprised.
Simon: “The best things that come out of experiments are things that we didn’t expect – especially those that we would never have imagined, in advance, as possibilities.”
Experiments all have an experimental and a control condition, just as any well-designed experiment is supposed to have.
On management
Great management: high aspirations, common sense, and responsibility for getting results.
Be more focused on solving problems than placing blame on those who caused them.
The grass is always greenest on your own side of the fence.
High morale among staff is achieved by presenting them with challenges and being generous with sharing credit.
Solid accomplishment takes time – in an organization, usually many years.
Well-managed organizations are powerful instruments for achieving socially important goals.
Simon: “A strong rudder and motivation on top are not antithetical to openness to ideas from below, from above – from everywhere. Management does not have to be weak to be “participative”. All it requires is a manager who is strong enough in his inner convictions not to feel obliged to defend himself from ideas that come from without.”
On finance
Don’t spend more than you earn.
If you desire little, you will spend little.
If you are busy working (toward your goal / dream), you will spend little because you don’t have the time to spend money.
Simon: “The only information that is of value in a financial market is information that other people don’t have. That means that I don’t have to pay daily, or even monthly, attention to the stock market, since it tells me nothing about whether I should buy or sell. Hence, the turnover on my investments is very low.”
On relationships
People are unimpressed by ‘the wise guy’.
Instead, be humble and learn from others.
You will be liked and respected.
Simon: “Acquire as many good friends as possible, who are as energetic, intelligent, and knowledgeable as they can be. Form partnerships with them whenever you can. Then sit back and relax. You will find that all the programs you need are stored in your friends, and you will execute productively and creatively as long as you don’t interfere too much.”
Energy and dedication to your craft will make people want to work (or be) with you.
On marriage and love
Simon: “You can love two or more women at once – denying that would be denying my own emotions – but you cannot be loyal to more than one.”
Simon: “Commitment in marriage means that the needs of one other person must hold a special priority in our life. That person must be able to count on us as we count on him or her, and the needs of two persons cannot share the same urgency.”
On values
German values: formality in manner, sternness, a belief in discipline, cultural breadth, with an interest in all things intellectual, artistic, and political. Professional work was important and challenging, but life was more than work.
Adulthood means serious work.
Simon: “As we paid the cashier, David (Rockefeller) would sometimes buy us each a chocolate mint, keeping up the tradition of the dimes his grandfather, John D. Rockefeller so regularly passed out to strangers he encountered.”
Food for thought
Simon on pioneers: “There would very likely be an industry here in thirty or forty years, but that the pioneers who built it up would probably lose a lot of money in the meantime.”
Simon: “Is thinking best viewed as a process of reasoning from premises, using the metaphor of logic, or as a process of selective search through a maze?”
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