Mental Models, Briefly

Mental models are representations of a separate reality, “a simplified explanation of how something works.” They are a “way of looking at the world […] the set of tools that you use to think.“ We inevitably all have and use mental models. They shape how we look at and reason about the world around us. A model is of course not the thing itself. The map and territory relationship reminds us of that. Every model necessarily omits details, simplifies and draws attention to aspects of the modeled reality. As such, strictly speaking, every model is wrong. Some are useful. Given multiple different models for the same reality, they are all wrong – and useful (!) – in different ways. Some models are more useful than others, depending on context. We benefit from using better models, or multiple, complementing models, because that helps us get a better view of what we are trying to explain. The reality of our world is not neatly divided into separate disciplines of discourse. That categorization…