Building Models

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Science reduces to the use of models to understand the world.

• We are concerned with mental models.
• The world is complex, uncertain, and unknown. We need to represent it in our thoughts in a way that we can understand. The process of creating a representation is "model-building".
• The representation may be formal or informal. An informal model is convenient for analytical use. Formal models are used for communication and proofs.
• Models are essential and ubiquitous. We can't hold the world in our minds, so they are essential. The consequences of modelling appear even in daily conversation: consider the phrase "But I thought you meant something else." My model must be different from yours, because we interpret the words differently.
• Models change the interpretation of statements.

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