Winfried, You wrote:
>Can you imagine a person without a mental model, seeing "truth" directly,
>so to speak.
I'd like to raise a couple questions:
First, are mental models not healthy, or worse, evil? Do they keep us
from seeing the truth?
Second, what is truth? I don't mean to be contentious or obtuse. What I
really want to know is whether we can grasp truth apart from any mental
models?
My perspective is this.
Truth maybe an absolute in the ontological, biblical sense of the word.
But truth is relative in the sense of human perception. We cannot divorce
ourselves from our mental models. We can clarify them, change them,
improve them, but never escape them into some sort of eternal vacuum of
unmediated awareness of truth. Our mental models are the filters and
tools of perception. Our mental models are us. They are not something
distinguished from us, like a shirt or house, which tells people about us.
It is like Gavin Stevins, William Faulkner's lawyer in Requiem for a Nun
said, "The past ain't dead. The past ain't even past." The same is true
of our mental models. They are not something in which I can rid myself.
They are me. What is relevant is how my context of religion, ethnicity,
family, place of origin, political affiliation, educational background,
sexual preference, marital status, occupation/vocation and information
sources form my mental models. In essence, you can't divorce yourself.
Here, self-awareness, leads to understanding how we perceive reality or
truth or the way things are. And in humble recognition of the context and
influences which have constructed our mental models there is truth and
hope for broadening our awareness of the truth.
Now some may say that our mental models form reality or truth. That to me
is scary. If truth is only self-referential, only what I say that it is,
then we have lost a rational basis for the common good. We have then
become a society of narcissists, isolated into our own little world of
truth. This is the one side of the mental models issue. We must be
careful not to think that we are can rid ourselves of our mental models,
and therefore find some sort of self-liberation.
In conclusion, I believe that there is truth, both absolute and relative.
But truth can never be grasped in its totality, but only through of our
own human limitations in perception. Know thyself, know they mental
models and know the context of knowing truth, and in this freedom will
emerge.
Ed Brenegar
Leadership Resources
edb3@msn.com
--"Ed Brenegar" <edb3@email.msn.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>