Model Thinking
Chapter 3 - Experiential Growth Method® - Deeper dive - Thinking
Back to Causal Thinking or Book content
.
Welcome to the Model Thinking page
.
Why a model?
How can we determine whether a phenomenon or event causes another event (the problem of causality)? And as for induction, how do we know whether the regularities we have found in the world exist and correspond to that world itself? After all, many other possible regularities could describe the same reality. We can use models to solve these problems.
The purpose of a model is to make a part of the world more understandable by visualising, simulating or describing it.
A model aims to understand and describe the patterns of natural phenomena. There are graphical, conceptual, mathematical and computational models. In most cases, a model 'mediates' between phenomena and an underlying, sometimes still unknown, theory. In most cases models for patterns are first developed, which are only later understood from a broader theory and thus from principles.
Some people use models to make decisions, and some don't. The people with models do better. So models make us better thinkers. The reason for this is that models weed out our logical inconsistencies.
Models help us to understand data. We are lost with data without a model. What does this mean: 30 32 29 34 28 15 40? The minutes I spent at the breakfast table last week.
.