The Art of Thinking Backwards | Philip Mudd | TEDxMemphis

Philip Mudd discusses thinking backwards to solve problems versus traditional methods. He uses his experience in counterterrorism to prove these methods work.

Philip Mudd spent 25 years in the federal government working on national security issues, especially counterterrorism at the CIA, FBI, and White House. He served as the Deputy Director of the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA and the senior intelligence adviser at the FBI. He left government in 2010 and now speaks, writes, consults, and teaches. His most recent book, The HEAD Game, a guid to critical thinking and problem solving, was published in 2015. HE appears frequently on CNN as the network's counterterrorism analyst, and he speaks to universities, law enforcement officials, and companies about issues such as decision-making and national security.

[parkjihoon]

I actually know what he's talking about "thinking backwards".as a web developer, in programming of any kind you have to approach problem solving and implementation in this way all the time

[baonguyennnnn]

This excellent speech should have reach to hundred thousand or million people by now, why the number of watching people is so little?

And why do some people talking about CIA and 9/11 while the idea of thinking backward is so brilliant here?

People are so weird!

[somewhatblankpaper]

Basically, his way of thinking seems pretty common in science field and mathematics. Maybe most of us are doing it without being aware of it. Sometimes, we observe a phenomenon, and we ask ourselves, what are some plausible causes? That constitutes a reverse-engineering aka thinking backwards. Then, the next step is to experimentally show the possibility of some of the plausible causes that we have mentioned. Then, as evidence amounts to a certain degree, the idea will be approved by the scientific community and abstracted into a causation of the event in science. Abstractly, this way of thinking can be conceived as: "Given a fixed end/goal, X, what are plausible sequences of events/conditions that lead to X?". We apply similar idea to mathematical patterns, but we have to prove that the conditions we are dealing with result in our goal. In general, it seems a method of thinking that is useful for pattern discoveries since you already know a goal, but you don't really know what conditions can lead to it.

[ForMyPersonalUse-ii]

pensar al revés, no siempre significa un cambio significante

[honestnewsnet]

That's not thinking backwards it's called setting a goal! A goal is up ahead not backwards or behind you.

[maximjupiter]

" The Key is to think, we are too lazy to think " - Maxim Juliter

[sandro]

Everyone who is saying that he’s treasonous, please explain yourselves; you all seem like you just believe things should be done certain ways and are unwilling to consider other options. Even if he was wrong, if people tried to rebuke him reasonably it would necessarily produce an actual argument against him while also strengthening your own views with actual reasoning. Essentially, just because you’ve been taught a certain way, even if the entire world thought a certain way, you need to have reasons to back up those opinions against other perspectives, otherwise there’s no actual reason to say you’re right. So please, people who are saying he’s treasonous, give me a reason, try to convince me and everyone else who agrees with him

[mayowaade]

5:22 Is that Nsima Inyang from Mark Bell’s Power project??

[RobNarly]

17:00
The last minute is the most important... Always
Btw, i love to get it a taxi and say just drive XD

[danf]

this guy at the end basically described the peace corps.

[ridhwaanquasem]

I thought this would help me in my retrograde chess analysis. It does not.

[boninugroho]

While I fully agree about his idea about inversion thinking ( of which I learned from Charlie Munger before I watched this video), I don't agree about his comparison between kids drowns in the pool against ISIS threat. There are two different fruits.

The drowning problem does not have the characteristic of ruins. It will not grow exponentially. When ISIS (or other terrorist groups) able to acquire mass destructive weapons (nuclear for instance), they will caused a much more death and damage than the yearly drowning death.

It is like when in the early spread of VOCID-19 pandemic, many what so called experts compare the number of death from malaria, cancer or road accidents with the tiny number of death from COVID -19. They forget that COVID-19 has the exponential characteristic (and ruins) while malaria, cancer or road accidents don't. Fast forward in today's reality, COVID-19 death clearly shows the much more damaging impact in global scale than those other maladies, because of ruins characteristic.

[deannadavis]

Great stuff, but rebuking the audience made my ears close a little. I kept watching because I recognize the value of what he’s saying, however, this was an automatic response that’s hard to overcome. He ought to have thought backwards before making his rebuke if his goal was truly about the message.

[questionbazaar]

What the F**k guys. I think this guy is my mentor. He presents the most scientific way to make decisions.

[kashifrajput]

Scenario:Taliban
Thinking backwards:Who invented them
Ans:US & West

[flor.]

Backwards thinking summarises the CIA so well 😂

[sanadbenali]

the last question the characteristics of the things I done over the weekends of the last five years which has brought me most joy what does characteristics mean in this context thank you

[flamedenise]

I like the way he talks and his voice and tone and all. However, the way the idea was presented is not very relatable nor easy to follow... at least for people like me who are really not into topics of terrorism. I would have understood better if a more familiar example is focused on (besides the taxi).

[najibzaoui]

where is the man? well the actual man is either chilling in washington DC or in Tel aviv.

[coreyscott]

American competition metaphors of "who's gonna win?" and CIA, terrorism, blah, blah, blah.