Mental Models XLVIII

"If we wish to form a mental representation of what is going on among the molecules in calm air, we cannot do better than observe a swarm of bees, when every individual bee is flying furiously, first in one direction, and then in another, while the swarm, as a whole, either remains at rest, or sails slowly through the air." (James C Maxwell, "Molecules", Nature, 1873) 

"That phenomenon which corresponds to a thing in thought, we will call the representation, concept or mental image of a thing." (Giuseppe Veronese, "Grundzüge der Geometrie von mehreren Dimensionen und mehreren Arten gradliniger Einheiten in elementarer Form entwickelt", 1894)

"The image of the world around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagines all the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts, and relationships between them, and uses those to represent the real system." (Jay W Forrester, “Counter-Intuitive Behaviour of Social Systems”, Technological Review 73, 1971) 

"There are two subcategories of holist called irredundant holists and redundant holists. Students of both types image an entire system of facts or principles. Though an irredundant holist's image is rightly interconnected, it contains only relevant and essential constitents. In contrast, redundant holists entertain images that contain logically irrelevant or overspecific material, commonly derived from data used to 'enrich' the curriculum, and these students embed the salient facts and principles in a network of redundant items. Though logically irrelevant, the items in question are of great psychological importance to a 'redundant holist', since he uses them to access, retain and manipulate whatever he was originally required to learn." (Gordon Pask, "Learning Strategies and Individual Competence", 1972)

"Your experience in the world of physical matter flows outward from the center of your psyche. Then you perceive this experience. exterior events, circumstances and conditions are meant as a kind of living feedback. Altering the state of the psyche automatically alters the physical circumstances. There is no other valid way of changing physical events. It might help if you imagine an inner living dimension within yourself in which you create, in miniature psychic form, all the exterior conditions that you know. Simply put, you do exactly this. Your thoughts, feelings and mental pictures can be called incipient exterior events, for in one way or another, each of these is materialized into physical reality." (Jane Roberts, "The Nature of Personal Reality", 1974) 

"The psychological core of understanding consists in your having a 'working model' of the phenomenon in your mind. If you understand inflation, a mathematical proof, the way a computer works, DNA or a divorce, then you have a mental representation that serves as a model of an entity in much the same way as, say, a clock functions as a model of the earth's rotation." (Philip Johnson-Laird, "Mental Models: Towards a Cognitive Science of Language, Inference and Consciousness", 1983)

"Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial you have to use not a shadow but a sign, not the limitation but the image. The image is a new and different reality, and of course it does not convey an impression of some object, but the mind of the subject; and that is something else again." (Thomas Merton, "Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton", 2006) 

"Models are present in everything we do. One does not have a family or corporation in one's head. Instead, one has observations about those systems. Such observations and assumptions constitute mental models, which are then used as the basis for action. System dynamics models have little impact unless they change the way people perceive a situation. They must relate to and improve mental models if they are to fill an effective role." (Jay W Forrester, "Modeling for What Purpose?", The Systems Thinker Vol. 24 (2), 2013)

"System dynamics models have little impact unless they change the way people perceive a situation. A model must help to organize information in a more understandable way. A model should link the past to the present by showing how present conditions arose, and extend the present into persuasive alternative futures under a variety of scenarios determined by policy alternatives. In other words, a system dynamics model, if it is to be effective, must communicate with and modify the prior mental models. Only people's beliefs - that is, their mental models - will determine action. Computer models must relate to and improve mental models if the computer models are to fill an effective role." (Jay W Forrester, "Modeling for What Purpose?", The Systems Thinker Vol. 24 (2), 2013)

"From the mental models that people have, they can define the world around them. They can relate and share ideas with others as a way of improving their lives. […] Looking at the bigger picture, mental models not only help people in understanding how the world works, but it also draws people to comprehend their position in it." (Adam Feel, "Mental Models", 2019)