Skip to main content

What Difference Does it Make Why it Works?

This is the question someone asked me the other day in regards to the good results I've had on low-carb. Beyond just satisfying your curiosity, having a lattice work of mental models, as Charlie Munger puts it, can save you a lot of trouble. Without mental models of (in this case) human digestion, evolution, nutrition research, journalism, medical education, and even politics, all I'd have is just something that works for acid reflux.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Something that works might only work in certain situations, could be unpredictable, could have unintended consequences, or could just be a placebo effect. Knowing how something works reduces the danger.  As Munger's partner Warren Buffett put it, "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."

Yet how often are people overconfident when they only know a thing or two? The web is full of bros who cut down on the beer and pizza, got some exercise and lost 40 pounds--and you can, too! Their moms recommend more fiber, less fat and fewer calories, which everybody knows works: it's in all their women's magazines.

Doing what everybody else isn't can be intimidating. Knowing what you're doing, having arrived at the same conclusion from different disciplines, can inform you if you're on the right track and help you stay the course. Here's where the lattice of mental models comes in: facts are connected to other facts. Those facts form the lattices of disciplines and some of the lattices are connected. To pick an example, veganism weaves an interesting lattice with claims of good health, environmental consciousness, and humane treatment of animals. And a juice fast is something that works for certain health problems. But approach the lattice from the disciplines of evolution, or ancestral diets, or digestion, or nutritional requirements, and the lattice of veganism falls apart.

Without a lattice of knowledge--knowing how a system works--all you have is a collection of facts that may be a collection of fairy tales. Like most collections, it can't do anything but be displayed. It's hard to verify unrelated facts, assuming you can remember them. You can't build on them--anything new has to be through trial and error and luck. It's a way of going through life otherwise known as stupidity. I've done it--I have a mouthful of fillings to prove it.

ETA: This could be one reason engineers are so subject to wackiness (e.g., being overrepresented in terrorist groups and fringe religions): they learn pretty much only mental models of engineering subjects, which aren't exactly metaphors for life. Requiring courses in comparative religion, epistemology, and human evolution for an engineering degree could well rid the world of a lot of terrorists.


Comments

tess said…
interesting thoughts! :-D
Lori Miller said…
I'm reading Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor. Munger reads widely and he's dedicated to rationality. I'm also thinking of the essay "Dursley Duplicity" by Diana Hsieh: "No fact of reality can be isolated from all others, so any conflict between knowledge and pretense pressures the self-deceiver to either admit the self-deception or deceive himself further to preserve it."
Galina L. said…
My husband almost decided to check what a wheat-free diet may do for him (his problems are susceptibility to allergies and sensitive intestines). I think a grain free or a gluten free diet would be better, but everyone makes own diet decisions in my family.He said so far he yet to a see a definitely conclusive evidence that a wheat is that harmful. He is a scientist in a real life, and just a study report is not enough from his perspective,he says very often a study doesn't get reproduced. I guess he would try it anyway, but in his case he feels the need to know why something works. For my son a gluten-free diet made huge difference in which foods could be allergens.
Lori Miller said…
He could do his own N=1 study. Such a study shouldn't be harmful to him as long as he doesn't replace wheat foods with gluten-free junk food. There's no need in the human diet for wheat, and you can get any nutrients in wheat from other foods. At worst, it could be unpleasant if wheat has a drug-like effect on him.

As to why wheat could cause allergies or intestinal distress, my understanding is that wheat permeates the intestinal barrier, allowing things into the blood stream that shouldn't be there. FWIW, my allergies decreased by 99% when I quit eating wheat, and that experience has been reported by many other people. I know that's probably not the mechanism your husband is looking for, but it is some evidence.
Galina L. said…
He didn't find all that scientifically very solid, but almost ready to try it anyway. Many of my allergies are much milder now, and I don't need an asthma inhaler. It is enough for me, but I am not a scientist.

Popular posts from this blog

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here .  * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...

Fasting blood sugar & insulin have crept up!

It's pretty bad when even conventional medicine thinks your blood sugar is high. I had lab tests done last week, as I do every year, and saw things were going in the wrong direction. Photo from Pixabay . Uh-oh.  Ideal blood sugar is about 70-90. Your blood sugar can be high because you're stressed or ill, but I felt OK. I can't blame it on cortisol, which was smack in the middle of the normal range. And my A1c, which reflects blood sugar over the past few months, shows that whatever is going on has been happening for a while. My insulin is more than double what it should be. Oddly, my triglycerides, which typically indicate carb consumption, were good.  I don't have an explanation for the triglycerides. I should have suspected something was wrong, though. I've felt very tired and a little sad for the past few months. Unlike many people with higher than ideal blood sugar and insulin, I had only gained about three pounds.  Regardless of my good weight and triglyceride...

Interview: The Microbiome's Effect on Almost Everything

Mark L. Cannon, DDS, MS joins Bret Weinstein of the Darkhorse Podcast for a discussion about the oral microbiome and its downstream effects on everything from acne to Alzheimer’s. Dr. Cannon is a pediatric dentist and professor of otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine). It's an hour and 44 minutes, but well worth your time. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkOgCXiMeE

Avoiding a Nightmare by Using Math

The answer lies in trigonometry. -Sherlock Holmes Don't worry if you never learned trigonometry--the answers here lie in arithmetic. Medical test results often come back positive or negative, as if the result were a certainty. Of course, there is the accuracy, but if the accuracy is 99% or so, what does that really mean? That you should get your affairs in order? Before you call your probate attorney, let's take an example from the book Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. Let's say you're a 40-something year old woman with no symptoms of breast cancer. You have a positive mammogram. What are the odds you have breast cancer? Using some assumptions about test accuracy and rates of disease based on real data, the odds that you'd have breast cancer are one in eleven according to Gigerenzer. (If you were way off, don't feel bad--most of the physicians Gigerenzer tested were way off, too--and they had the data in front of them. Not that that's comforting in every...

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...