Everything

Illusion, Hidden Truth, Perception

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

The Ugly Duckling (is a swan)

The Tortoise (faster) and the Hare

The Trojan Horse (is not a gift)

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

The Emperor has no Clothes

A boy named Sue

The Matrix

The (Nixon) Madman Theory

Pareidolia | Rorschach inkblot test

Lost in the Mall

Freudian slip

Well Travelled Road Effect: time seems shorter for familiar routes.

Gestalt: Proximity, Similarity, (Gap) Closure, (Line) Continuation, Symmetry/ Parallelism, Simplest

Hindsight is 20/20.

Time flies... A watched pot...

Let them eat cake.

Skepticism

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Don’t believe everything you hear.

All that glitters is not gold

Doubting Thomas

Contradiction, Irony, Paradox

Stereotypes are bad.

Okrent’s Law: The pursuit of balance can create imbalance: sometimes something is true.

The lady doth protest too much

The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true. Niels Bohr

The Prisoner's Dilema

Catch-22

Brooks’ law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Peter principle: Employees get promoted til they are incompetent.

Hotelling’s law: Sometimes it is rational for business competitors to make their products as identical as possible.

Goodhart’s law: When a social or economic indicator is a target for policy, it stops being indicative.

Patience is a viture. Seize the day.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Out of sight, out of mind.

Curiosity killed the cat.
You never know until you try.

Chicken or Egg?

Koan (One hand clapping)

Hypocrisy, Dogma, Point-of-View

People in glass houses

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy. John K. Galbraith

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. John K. Galbraith

It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and the unjust: once you have a point of view all history will back you up. Van Wyck Brooks

Where you stand depends on where you sit. The grass is always greener on the other side. In the land of the blind, the 1-eyed man is king.

Conflict

Obama: Gotcha games.

Muphry’s law : If you write a criticism of editing or proofing, there will be a fault of some kind in what you wrote.

Sour grapes

To thine own self be true

Et tu, Brute?

Takes two, Do unto others, He who is without sin, What goes around, 2 wrongs

Overconfidence

We all think we are above-average.

The illusion of explanatory depth

Black Swans

The Invisible Gorilla

I told you I was a snake.

Icarus

Schneier’s Law: Anyone can invent a code they can’t think of how to break.

Simplicity

Occam’s razor: The simplest full explanation for a phenomenon is preferable. Hanlon’s razor: Only suggest malice or conspiracy when ignorance & incompetence are ruled out.

KISS: Keep It Simple and Stupid.

Less is more.

Gall’s law: Complex, working systems always evolved from simple, working systems.

Specificity

An approximate answer to the right question is far better than a precise answer to the wrong question. John Tukey

It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. J.M. Keynes

Complications, Entropy

Murphy’s law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Segal’s law : A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.

Chance favors the prepared mind. Louis Pasteur

Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter’s law into account. see also Strange Loops

Conway’s Law: An organization that designs a system inevitably mimicks its own hierarchy.

Ignorance, Prediction, the Unknown

Rumsfeld: Unknown unknowns & known unknowns.

We’re very good at building things that will stand up to the last earthquake.

Linus’s law: Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. Restated: given enough viewers, all glitches become obvious.

Amara’s law: We overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate it in the long run.

Clarke’s 3 Laws: 1 What a respected scientist calls possible or impossible is probably possible. 2 To find the limits of possible you must venture beyond them. 3 Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

There is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana

Don’t count your chickens

Be careful what you wish for.

Here today, gone tomorrow. This too shall pass.

Kranzberg’s Law: Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.

Kerckhoffs’ principle: A system is only secure if everything (except the key) can be made public.

Balance & Proportion

I’m okay, you’re okay

The Goldilocks Zone

The Uncanny Valley

Relativity: Time slows as you approach the speed of light.

Parkinson’s law: Work expands to fill any time saved. In computers: Programs expand to fill all available memory.

Pick Only 2: good, fast, cheap

Glass’s Law: Each 25% increase in scope doubles the solution complexity.

Moore’s law: The complexity of integrated circuits doubles ~24 months.

Reed’s law: Utility in social networks grows exponentially with membership.

You can fool some of the people...

rock, paper, scissors

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Cause & Effect

Garbage in – garbage out.

Gresham’s law: Bad money drives good money out of circulation.

Keynes’s Law: Demand creates its own supply.

Ignorance, Love, Beauty, Cleanliness, Honesty, Pride, Misery, Patience, Virtue, Hope, Youth, Action , Talk, Rehearsal, Practice, Perfection

If it ain’t broke, don't fix it.

Zodiac: Aries ram, Taurus bull, Gemini twins, Cancer crab, Leo lion, Virgo virgin, Libra scales, Scorpio scorpion, Sagittarius archer, Capricorn sea-goat, Aquarius waterbearer, Pisces fish Elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Aether Theological virtues Faith, hope, charity

Chinese Zodiac: Rat, Dragon, Monkey, Ox, Snake, Rooster, Tiger, Horse, Dog, Rabbit, Sheep, Pig 7 Deadly Sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony Maslow’s Hierarchy: Air, Food » Safety » Love, Belonging » Esteem » Self-actualization

palindrome, anagrams, ambigram

Formal

Affirmation of the consequent (as proof of antecedent):
A implies B, B is true, therefore A is true. When rendered If A then B, therefore if B then A, it's called Converting a Conditional or Illicit Conversion

If the Tubescreamer was created by a supernatural being, it would sound great through a tube amp. It does; so it was.

Denial of the antecedent (taken as denial of the consequent): A implies B, A is false, therefore B is false.

It doesn’t; so it wasn’t.

Fallacy of four terms: All B have C, all A are B, so all A have C. Four terms puts a D in there.

fallacy fallacy: Arguing that a proposition is false because it has been presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Masked man fallacy:
I know who X is.
I do not know who Y is.
Therefore, X is not Y.

Affirming a disjunct: concluded that one logical disjunction must be false because the other disjunct is true; A or B; A; therefore not B.

Existential fallacy: The arguments' conclusion assumes that a category has a member, but without support from the premise.

Informal » Non Causa Pro Causa

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: To precede is to cause

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc: Simultaneity is causality

Wrong Direction: Cause and effect reversed

Regression: ascribes cause where none exists, failing to account for natural fluctuations.

Formal » Syllogistic

Four terms: All B have C, all A are B, so all A have C. Four terms puts a D after “so”.

Exclusive premises: a categorical syllogism that is invalid because both of its premises are negative.

Illicit major: a categorical syllogism, its major term is undistributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion.

Undistributed (Not All-Inclusive) Middle: The middle term of a syllogism does not refer to its entire class in the major or minor premise.

Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise: A categorical syllogism with a positive conclusion & at least one negative premise.

Nonsense & Red Herrings

Argumentum ad/ Appeal to:
antiquity, wealth, popular opinion/ bandwagon, fear, the gallery, novelty, authority, pity, possibility, poverty (ad lazarum), a word's origin (etymology), consequences, emotion, force, majority belief, revenge, flattery, tradition, ridicule, repetition, nature, natural law, personal attack (ad hominem)

Tu quoque: You Too An action is acceptable because your opponent has performed it.

Red herring: Irrelevant evidence, attention is diverted away from the points made.

Non sequitur: Non sequential, it doesn’t follow. an argument nothing to do with the conclusion.

Ad hoc: (for this purpose only) An after-the-fact explanation.

No True Scotsman: No Scotsman. Scotsman example. No true Scotsman.

Probability

Gambler’s fallacy: a random event can be affected or predicted by an independent events

Conjunction: finding “A is true, B is true” more likely than “A is true”.

Base Rate: Ignoring the base rate due to the appeal of specific information.

Package-deal: often together = always together.

Prosecutor’s fallacy: a low odds of winning the lotto does not equal low odds of lotto winners

Availability bias: easy to think of examples = more common.

Categories and Parts

Composition: The whole is like the parts – a property of all items is shared by the collection.

Division: The part is like the whole – a property of a collection of items is shared by each item.

Hasty generalization: Assuming one instance represents the whole.

Accident: treating a rule of thumb as exceptionless. Penguins aren’t birds because they can’t fly.
Converse accident: Penguins are flightless, so birds can’t fly.

Rigidity

false dilema/ dichotomy: (Bifurcation) Presents only two alternatives, where other alternatives exist.

Is-ought: is = ought to be

Retrospective determinism: it happened, so it was bound to.

Hidden Agendas

Cherry Picking: using (hand-picked) examples that support your point, but are not representative.

Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: Picking your target after you shoot.

Poisoning the Well: pre-emptive messages intended to foster bias against a predicted idea.

Straw Man: Misrepresents a position so that it can be attacked more easily.

Extended Analogy: Portraying an example with some parallels as if it was intended to be absolutely parallel.

Begging the Question: Circular argument. Assumes the conclusion in the premise.

Complex (loaded) Question: (Interrogation /Presupposition) presupposes something unproven. Have you stopped beat your wife?

Shifting the Burden of Proof: (ad ignorantiam/ from ignorance) Something must be true because it hasn’t been proved false.

Moving the Goalposts: Changing an arguement/standard in response to a valid counter-argument.

Slippery slope: A just change will snowball into unjust changes.

Denying/ Suppressing the Correlative: introducing false or lame alternatives.

Term Fog

Amphiboly misleading use of punctuation or syntax.

Accent: altering the emphasis to misrepresent.

Contextomy: quoting out of context

Equivocation: the same term in different ways.

Continuum fallacy: Terms on a continuum (long/short, big/small) are not distinct.

Loki’s Wager: Loki bet his head (but not his neck). Upon losing, he insisted that the difference cannot be identified.

Unstated Assumtions: (Audiatur et altera pars) Premises should be stated explicitly.

Reification: an abstract concept is treated as a concrete thing. Think ‘Real-ification’

Quantifier Shift: Every person has a weakness, so there’s a weakness every person has.

If a tree falls in a forest

Clinton: It depends on what your definition of “is” is.

Cognitive Bias

Acquiescence bias: a tendency to agree with survey assertions.

Confirmation bias

Metaphysics » Reality

Ultimate Being/God

Theism: God(s).
Monotheist: One God.
Polytheist: Many gods.
Pantheist: All is God.

Agnosticism: Unknown.
Strong: Unknowable.
Weak: Currently unknown.

Atheism: No God.
Strong: Surely no God.
Weak: No reason to believe.

Ultimate Essence

Monism: One principal essence.

Dualism: Mental & Physical are different.

Pluralism: Many essences.

Objectivism: Real is mind-independent

Teleologism: Nature is purposed.

Free Will

Determinism, Cause & Effect

Soft Determinism: FW is just freedom? Yes.FW and C&E? Compatible.C&E? Always.

Hard Determinism: FW is just freedom? No.FW and C&E? Incompatible.C&E? Always.

Libertarianism: FW is just freedom? No.FW and C&E? Incompatible.C&E? Not Always.

Logic » Validity

Approach to logic

Logical Positivism: Use strict reason

Logicism: math is reducible to logic.

Epistemology » Knowledge

What we can know and how

Rationalism: Know by reasoning.

Idealism: Observed ideas are real.

Empiricism: Know by observing.

Materialism: The only certainty is matter.

Foundationalism: core beliefs don't need proof

Realism: Reality is not subject to perception.

Determinism: Always cause & effect.

Naturalism: No hypothesizing miracles.

Ontologism: We intuit God.

Skepticism: (Pyrrhonian) Nothing can be known.

Ethics » Morality

Deciding what is right, good, or valuable

Formalism: Based on a fair process.

Pragmatism: Based on consequences. ~consequentialism

Utilitarianism: The greater good.

How should we behave?

Stoicism: Self-control.

Asceticism: Refrain from worldly pleasures.

Epicureanism: Seek pleasure, avoid pain.

What is moral?

Objectivism: Right & wrong is real.

Relativism: No Absolutes.

Analysis

Structuralism: a real structure is beneath the appearance

Post-Structuralism: signifier & signified not united but inseparable

Postmodernism: Most “wisdom” over-assumes, fears grey area.

Deconstructionism: All complex thought is self contradictory.

Reductionism: the complex can be explained by the simple.

Semiotics: signifier (sign) & signified

Hermeneutics: Methods of interpretation

Phenomenology: Objective description and study of the subjective.

Densely Packed Ideas, Truisms, Eponymous Axioms