Thoughts after reading Third Millennium Thinking

Every flight between the U.S. and Korea leaves me feeling as if different parts of me are traveling at different speeds.

My body is still somewhere in the comfort of home in Seattle.

My thoughts are drifting quietly above the Pacific.

Meanwhile, my subconscious has already landed, preparing itself for another round of Korean conversations.

Maybe that's my own definition of distance.

From space, there are no countries or continents—just one small blue planet, and an even smaller version of ourselves living on it.

During the flight I finished Third Millennium Thinking, written by an extraordinary trio: Nobel Prize-winning physicist Saul Perlmutter, philosopher John Campbell, and psychologist Robert MacCoun.

Since 2011, they've taught an interdisciplinary course at UC Berkeley with a deceptively simple goal: helping people learn how to think, not what to think.

The course teaches students how to separate facts from opinions, ask better questions before rushing to conclusions, think in probabilities rather than certainties, and work with people who see the world differently instead of staying inside comfortable echo chambers.

It's a framework that feels especially relevant today, when information is abundant but clarity isn't.

One story from the book really stayed with me.

While working as a postdoc, Saul Perlmutter's research team had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe Supernova 1987A. Their telescope detected what appeared to be a pulsing neutron star. After correcting the data for Doppler effects, an almost perfectly smooth sine wave emerged.

It looked like evidence of a planet orbiting the neutron star.

The discovery was exciting enough to be published in Nature.

A career-defining moment.

Then they went back to observe it again.

This time the signal appeared... then disappeared... then reappeared.

Eventually they discovered the truth.

Their telescope had been so sensitive that it was picking up tiny electronic interference from equipment on a neighboring mountain. Ironically, the data corrections had transformed random noise into what looked like a beautiful scientific discovery.

There had never been a planet.

The paper had to be withdrawn.

That story perfectly captures what science really is.

It's not about always being right.

It's about noticing patterns, testing them, getting things wrong, correcting yourself, and slowly moving closer to the truth.

A few ideas from the book have stayed with me ever since.

Sometimes I think I'm reasoning, when I'm really just telling myself a story I already wanted to believe.

The experts I trust most aren't the ones who never make mistakes. They're the ones willing to admit uncertainty and change their minds.

Instead of asking whether something is absolutely true or false, ask how confident you should be.

Disagreement isn't the enemy. It's often where better ideas begin.

Knowing what you don't know is far more valuable than being confidently wrong. Skepticism isn't pessimism—it's the courage to admit that reality may be more complicated than we'd like.

Since finishing the book, I've been trying to ask myself four questions more often:

Is this actually a fact, or just the story I'd like to believe?

When everyone agrees, do I still have the courage to ask, "Are we sure?"

When I see a perfect pattern, have I considered the possibility that it's just noise?

Instead of saying I'm certain, can I honestly describe my confidence as a probability?

Perhaps experience doesn't automatically make us wiser.

If we're not careful, it simply makes us more confident in yesterday's assumptions.

Real thinking begins when we're willing to question ourselves.