All models are wrong, some are useful.

‘All models are wrong, some are useful.”

I have been massaging this insight into my thinking for years. Why? Because it takes a firm, logical limit, and generates a number of liberating implications. It reminds me of the limitations that arise when deriving knowledge from models. Just as the map is not the territory, the model is not the thing being modeled. No matter how accurate a model is, the model is always different from what it is modeling.

What kinds of liberating insights come when taking this state of affairs seriously? Here is one of implications which I find liberating:

We function socially by building mental representations of the people in our lives. Mental representations are models. “All models are wrong”. Our models are not the people they are modeling. Therefore, our interpretations of people and their behaviors are always partial, incomplete, and at least a little bit wrong.

For me this simple insight creates a sense of freedom. I am free of any expectation that I can achieve a complete understanding of another person, and the other person is always necessarily free, in my mind, to be something different than what I think they are. Always.

[maps – models – indeterminacy – representation – abstraction- Going To Ground- limits - ways of liberation]