Lists

Lists are appealing because they give structure to otherwise unwieldy information.

Information security people frequently repeat the adage that defenders "think in lists" and hackers think in graphs. But a graph is just a list of lists. And it seems obvious that this useful observation extends far beyond the domain of computer security.

The reason lists and graphs are powerful is because they provide us a fair idea of what concepts are all about. Lists are tools, just like metaphors. They can let us quickly organize data and view ideas from various vantage points, which is both useful and efficient.

The brain has a natural tendency to think in lists. The brain has only a small bag of tricks, like pattern matching and repetition, and it can augment the feedback loop of consciousness in various ways—experimenting with the information it receives from the world in tandem with repeated experimentation.

An example is the history of paleontology, where every few hundred years, someone remarked, "I think some of the stuff on land was once under water. Look at these fossils." That idea was repeated over and over again, with occasional variations over time.

Today, an entire field of testable, verifiable knowledge exists, built on the foundation of what began as a mundane observation.

The paleontology parable, however, does not encompass all forms of great thinking. There are also instances of genius where unique discoveries emerge, defying the predictability of list-based heuristics.

Here are some Wikipedia lists (and timelines) that I find interesting, fun, and/or useful:

• List of lists of lists
• Timeline of the evolutionary history of life
• List of fossil sites
• Timeline of plant evolution
• List of animal classes
• Lists of prehistoric animals
• Timeline of paleontology
• List of human evolution fossils
• List of organs of the human body
• Lists of diseases
• List of extinction events
• Timeline of natural history
• Lists of astronomical objects
• List of time periods
• List of ancient great powers
• List of language families
• Timeline of biology and organic chemistry
• List of historical classifications
• List of laws
• List of experiments
• List of anonymously published works
• List of pen names
• List of paradoxes
• Lists of unsolved problems
• List of common misconceptions
• List of fallacies
• List of cognitive biases
• List of emerging technologies