Dear George
I am an engineer so this is only my opinion of a model. When we used to
design dams many of the hydraulic calculations could not cover all the
possibilities that could happen in real life. So we built models, i.e.
scaled down versions of the original. It was not the territory so to so
but rather the map, a 3D one at that. It looked in principal like the real
thing but off course it was not. But it did enough for us to feel
relatively safe that we managed to cover some of the eventualities in real
life.
Now that I am in human resources I do the same thing, rightly or wrongly.
I use a mental model to profile people. Now this is only a model of how we
think & act. It it is not the real thing. If the model stops working, I
will create another model that mimics the real world. None of these models
are in reality the real things but approximations of what we think is.
Modeling is just one way of creating an approximation and basically
science is founded on these things. If one doesn't work throw it out an
use another. Newtonian physics and Einstein's Theory of relativity is just
that. There is a difference between a model and a theory I suppose. Which
comes first is an argument that has been raging for a 100 years now. When
I was a engineer and the theory did not work we built a model and tested
it. If we could replicate the outcomes that that was good, if not we tried
something different.
In the end if you feel that models don't work use something else. Use
theory, use experience, that I believe is a personal model, use judgment,
use intuition, use trial & error, use other resources, use whatever is
available, & that's what science is all about.
Do it until you replicate the outcomes. Don't do the same things over &
over with the same theory or whatever and expect different results, I
think one of the founding fathers of psychoanalytical thought said that
was insanity.
Kindest
Gavin
> Not wanting to rekindle a sometimes rancorous discussion (as opposed to
> dialogue) on the Complexity list, never-the-less let me say that there are
> a few of us out here who have yet to purchase the "mental model."
>
> I promise not to belabour this important question, but if you are a
> proponent of "modelling" and specifically "mental models" please share
> what you mean by these terms/phrases.
--Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>