How is your journey towards understanding Farnam Street’s latticework of mental models going? Is it proving useful? Changing your view of the world? If the answer is that it’s going well that’s good. There’s just one tiny hitch.
All models are wrong.
Yep. It’s the truth. However, there is another part to that statement:
All models are wrong, some are useful.
Those words come from the British statistician, George Box. In a groundbreaking 1976 paper, Box revealed the fallacy of our desire to categorize and organize the world. We create models (a term with many applications), once to confuse them for reality.
Box also stated:
Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
What Exactly Is A Model?
First, we should understand precisely what a model is.
The dictionary definition states a model is ‘a representation, generally in miniature, to show the construction or appearance of something’ or ‘a simplified description, especially a mathematical one, of a system or process, to assist calculations and predictions.’
For our purposes here, we are better served by the second definition. A model is a simplification which fosters understanding.
Think of an architectural model. These are typically a small scale model of a building, made before it’s built. Its purpose is to show what the building will look like and to help people working on the project to develop a clear picture of the overall feel. In the iconic scene from Zoolander, Derek (played by Ben Stiller) looks at the architectural model of his propsed ‘school for kids who can’t read good’ and shouts “What is this?
A center for ants??”That scene illustrates the wrong way to understand models: Too literally.
Why We Use Models- And Why They Work
At Farnam Street, we believe in using models for the purpose of building a massive, but finite amount of fundamental, invariant knowledge about how the world really works. Applying this knowledge is the key to making good decisions and avoiding stupidity.
“Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility. Science gives us power. The more useful that power, the better the science.”
Time-tested models allow us to understand how things work in the real world. And understanding how things work prepares us to make better decisions without expending too much mental energy in the process.
Instead of relying on fickle and specialized facts, we can learn versatile concepts. The mental models we cover are intended to be widely applicable.
It’s crucial for us to understand as many mental models as possible. As the adage goes, a little knowledge can be dangerous and creates more problems than total ignorance. No single model is universally applicable – we find exceptions for nearly everything. Even hardcore physics has not been totally solved.
“The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that “right” and “wrong” are absolute; that everything that isn’t perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.”
Take a look at almost any comment section on the internet and you are guaranteed to find at least one pedant raging about a minor perceived inaccuracy, throwing out the good with the bad. While ignorance and misinformation are certainly not laudable, neither is an obsession with perfection.
Like heuristics, models work as a consequence of the fact they are usually helpful in most situations, not because they are always helpful in a small number of situations.
Models can assist us in making predictions and forecasting the future. Forecasts are never guaranteed, yet they provide us with a degree of preparedness and comprehension of the future. For example, a weather forecast which claims it will rain today may get that wrong. Still, it’s correct often enough to enable us to plan appropriately and bring an umbrella.
Mental Models and Minimum Viable Products
Think of mental models as minimum viable products.
Sure, all of them can be improved. But the only way that can happen is if we try them out, educate ourselves and collectively refine them.
We can apply one of our mental models, Occam’s razor, to this. Occam’s razor states that the simplest solution is usually correct. In the same way, our simplest mental models tend to be the most useful. This is because there is minimal room for errors and misapplication.
“The world doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for complete answers before it takes action.”
Your kitchen knives are not as sharp as they could be. Does that matter as long as they still cut vegetables? Your bed is not as comfortable as it could be. Does that matter if you can still get a good night’s sleep in it? Your internet is not as fast as it could be. Does that matter as long as you can load this article? Arguably not. Our world runs on the functional, not the perfect. This is what a mental model is – a functional tool. A tool which maybe could be a bit sharper or easier to use, but still does the job.
The statistician David Hand made the following statement in 2014;
In general, when building statistical models, we must not forget that the aim is to understand something about the real world. Or predict, choose…
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