Customer Reviews

Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger, 3rd Edition

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A wonderful book on wisdom and decision-making written by a wise decision-maker. This is the kind of book you read first, then leave by your bedside and re-read a bit every day, so you can slowly soak up the wisdom. It is sort of Montaigne but applied to business, with a great investigation of the psychological dimension of decision-making.
I like the book for many reasons --the main one is that it was written by a practitioner who knows what he wants, not by an academic.
Enjoy it,

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A lot of people know Charlie Munger as a great investor. However what is perhaps more interesting about Mungers personality is his ability to use multiple models to explain reality. He has always championed independent thinking and multi disciplinary approach. This book is a wonderful collection of his simple yet big ideas.
The world would be a much much better place if every man woman and child read this book and applied these thoughts in everday living.

This book is really a self-congratulatory book about Munger, which Munger, in an act of false modesty, can't write himself. Bevelin's book is an unsophisticated aggregation of epistemological methods, written without fluidity and with the obvious intent of kissing Munger butt.
I am sure Bevelin is interested in the subject of "seeking wisdom" but he writes in a calcified way, and some of the ideas are so 19th century, that you can't help but feel you are reading the musings of a rich, old, mildly intellectual dabbler, in a musty grand study room that has been writing his ideas on note books for years (probably with quill pen and ink) and decided "I should write a book about this". His writings about evolutionary selection are insufferable in their shallowness, naivite and lack of sophistication as they apply to the subject of epistemology.
He also talks about very modern concepts and developments in the subject of cognitive psychology and persuassion theory, but his stuff is just bad explanations of Cialdini's great work (which by-the-way is a work I highly recommend and I have reviewed for this site) and of Tversky and Kahneman (called prospect theory). For a serious understanding of these theories, the deeper reader should instead spend his time reading "Influence" by Cialdini and "Judgment under Uncertainty: heuristics and biases" by Tversky, Kahneman and others.
In short the book is a collection of scraps of writing, by a mediocre intellectual, that has powerful friends (I can almost bet he is himself a powerful old-money, money manager) that he wishes to impress and kiss-up to.
The book reeks of self-published vanity, and reading it is not a good use of a serious thinker's time. Perhaps it is just a good marketing tool for the author (to give his friends and clients) and a pride-piece on the mantle shelf of his home. I give it 2 stars because the table of contents rocks and makes you want to buy the book. Too bad the book didn't delivered what the table of contents promised.

I have a theory that books that are really worth reading, are usually difficult to find in the bookstore. As Bevelin quotes Oscar Wilde in this book, "The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing."

I work as a speechwriter and the discovery of Charlie Munger's speeches has opened up a whole new universe for me. I studied languages at Oxford University and it didn't teach me a single thing that has helped me run my own business. I love the idea of Munger's multidisciplinary approach, and he's a wonderful contrarian business intellectual. Bevelin provides a kind of Coles' notes to the Buffet/Munger theories.

On every page I have underlined excellent pearls of wisdom that will enhance any business presentation. Here are half-a dozen.

He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.
Benjamin Franklin

Everything seems stupid when it fails.
Fydor Dostoevsky

He that complies against his will, is of his own opinion still.
Samuel Butler

The task of man is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Sir William Osler

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.
Benjamin Franklin

No victor believes in chance.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Expand your mind. Buy this book.

Though most of us probably became aware of this book thru either Charles Munger or from the investing community, nevertheless, it will provide more to one's own education than just improving your investment returns only. From this reviewer's perspective, the contributions in this book are to educate your mind for a better view of the world around you. This then may provide for better investment returns but actually provides more.

This excellent addition to the study of "mental models" is divided into four (4) parts.

Part 1 - What Influences Our Thinking
Part 2 - The Psychology of Misjudgments
Part 3 - The Physics & Mathematics of Misjudgments
Part 4 - Guidelines to Better Thinking

Part 2 & 4 are the corner stones of the book. Part 2 breaks out "28" mental models much like the "25" models in Poor Charlie's Almanack. To paraphrase a fellow reviewer, "This is a section you read first, then leave close by and re-read over and over, so you can slowly soak up the wisdom." Part 4 in essence expounds and adds more color to what both Parts 2 & 3 have previously explored.

Also, Appendix #4 on Checklists is a must read.

In Mr. Bevelin's introduction, he asks that we start the journey for wisdom and hopes that it is inspiring. Mr. Bevelin, a big thanks for your contribution!

Cautionary Note: If the reader is not at least somewhat familiar with "mental models" or has not read other fine books on the subject similar to Poor Charlie's Almanack, Influence, How We Know What Isn't So, or The Psychology of Judgment & Decision Making, one may be best suited to start there. After your spade work is complete, most assuredly come back as this book takes you to the next level.

This book contains a lot of interesting nuggets of wisdom, ranging from Marcus Aurelius to Warren Buffet, but the content seems like it was thrown into a blender then poured into a word processor. The author could have benefited from a strong editor. I'll probably finish reading it because of the caliber of the people the book quotes, but it's been slow and hard to follow.

To my knowledge, there is no finer book on mental models, how to use it and most importantly, how not to make a fool of oneself.

Knowing the chapters is useful for understanding what the book is about; What influences our thinking, the psychology of misjudgements, the physics and mathematics of misjudegements and guidance to better thinking.

The author and Munger in particular believe strongly in a multi-disciplinary approach. Therefore, the book should appeal to readers of different professions while the book is skewed towards business/finance.

The mental model preaches rational thinking and decision making. You love the book or you don't, but you cannot argue about the tremendous amount of wisdom.

I really enjoyed this book - full of inspirational quotations and practical wisdom. I wish that I had read this book when I was 25 (but perhaps I would not have understood its significance at that age). What struck me most was Munger and Buffett's emphasis on making fewer mistakes than others. Another smart piece of advice was to walk away if it was too hard to understand a business that one was considering buying. This book is worth keeping close and dipping into to remind yourself of the smart thing to do. A great gift for someone considering starting an own business.

This book and Poor Charlie's Almanack are the two best books, in my opinion, for developing one's Latticework of Mental Models. Mr. Bevelin put in the time and work to make things flow in a logical order, and gives plenty of reference for further reading. For more on mental models and worldy wisdom, here is a description in the words of Charlie Munger:

"What is elementary, worldly wisdom? Well, the first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.

You've got to have models in your head. And you've got to array your experience - both vicarious and direct - on this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You've got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head.

What are the models? Well, the first rule is that you've got to have multiple models - because if you just have one or two that you're using, the nature of human psychology is such that you'll torture reality so that it fits your models, or at least you'll think it does. You become the equivalent of a chiropractor who, of course, is the great [...] in medicine.

It's like the old saying, "To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." And of course, that's the way the chiropractor goes about practicing medicine. But that's a perfectly disastrous way to think and a perfectly disastrous way to operate in the world. So you've got to have multiple models.

And the models have to come from multiple disciplines - because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department. That's why poetry professors, by and large, are so unwise in a worldly sense. They don't have enough models in their heads. So you've got to have models across a fair array of disciplines.

You may say, "My God, this is already getting way too tough." But, fortunately, it isn't that tough - because 80 or 90 important models will carry about 90% of the freight in making you a worldly - wise person. And, of those, only a mere handful really carry very heavy freight.
.....
Checklist routines avoid a lot of errors. You should have all this elementary [worldly] wisdom and then you should go through a mental checklist in order to use it. There is no other procedure in the world that will work as well."

As with the other Two Star reviews, I have to say that this book lacked any sort of direction or fluidity. Each rule or method seemed to be a rehash of a prior rule or method. This book is plagued with redundancy. Reading is very tedious and would be more so without the fantastic excerpts from Buffett and Munger. I also would say, and I don't believe this is too much of an exaggeration, that if you were to remove all of the quotes he uses in this book you would have about 50 pages left over. There is a namazing lack of original thought and exposition in this book.