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> First, you make a mental model. Then, you test it.

Except that isn't how that really works right? A mental model explains part of the reasoning that led to an outcome but never all. After all, the map is not the territory. A mental model is grounded in trivial assumptions. Ultimately, your brain produces inferences in a way that is incredibly hard to couple to a specific logical processes. There has been a lot of research on how experts think and reason and none of it is compatible with having a mental model whatsoever.



A mental model is fundamentally a predictive tool. It doesn't describe reality, it just allows us to make educated guesses about what will happen.

I'm a constructivist so I'm under no assumption that we have access to the territory at all except modulated by our subjective perception.




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