The Ability To Model

Everything engineers do involves some form of modeling - - from graphic models to mathematical models to mental models. We model the interaction of what we think we know about complex systems and our experience of the real world - - and this can be a profoundly humbling experience. Our ability to model the world is poised on a fundamental duality. Engineers know a tremendous amount about how the world works, but not nearly enough. Our knowledge is amazing; our ignorance even more so. The acquisition of knowledge always involves the revelation of ignorance - - almost is the revelation of ignorance.

The late Donella H. Meadows, is her outstanding book Thinking in Systems (2008), writes the three truths of models and reality:

1. Everything we think we know about the world is a model. Every word and every language is a model. All maps and statistics, books and databases, equations and computer programs are models. So are the ways I picture the world in my head - - my mental models. None of these is or ever will be the real world.
2. Our models usually have a strong congruence with the world. That is why we are such a successful species in the biosphere. Especially complex and sophisticated are the mental models we develop from direct, intimate experience of nature, people, and organizations immediately around us.
3. However, and conversely, our models fall far short of representing the world fully. That is why we make mistakes and why we are regularly surprised. In our heads, we can keep track of only a few variables at one time. We often draw illogical conclusions from accurate assumptions, or logical conclusions from inaccurate assumptions. Most of us, for instance, are surprised by the amount of growth an exponential process can generate. Few of us can intuit how to damp oscillations in a complex system.