Link to: Mr. Market Revisited
Thinking backward is quite intuitive. Backward thinking involves looking for patterns, making links between unconnected events and forming theories to influence forward-looking decision-making. Backward thinking has a gravitational pull toward the experiential emotion in our past as well as giving more proportion to recent events.
In my opinion, the biggest error in looking backward is not going back far enough to solve to laws and principles that are invariable, or unchanging through time. The three largest data sets, which I have previously written and credited Peter Kaufman for first enlightening me about, are:
1. The inorganic systems around us, which are 13.7 billion years in age and contain all the laws of physics and mathematics,
2. Organic systems, or all the biology on earth, which are 3.5 billion years in age and,
3. 20,000 years of recorded human history.
We can use these invariable laws and principles for intelligent decision-making.