Models

They’re sooo hot right? My favs are Irina Shayk, Taylor Hill, and Kendall Jenner before she did stuff to her lips… but we all know you didn’t come for those types of models… so here’s what you really came for:

Models aren’t just confined to the runway, they permeate every moment of our existence. They act as the basis that inform our epistimological viewpoint.

To understand this, you have to first subscribe to the viewpoint that the ontological reality is inconceivable and that everything we know is an abstraction from “true reality”.

Epistemology and everything its comprised of is just a model ontology. In other words– your subjective experience is a model of the objective truth.

So why does this matter?

When you start to understanding the components of your epistemological perspective, you can start to view things very differently.

Everything you interact with is an abstraction from the ontological reality, which means one model can never represent the “true” viewpoint of things. This is often overlooked. Models don’t take in account the complexity which emerges from an interconnected system. They help you get to the truth, but aren’t the truth.

So why should you care?

Well, take words for example. They hold with it inherent meaning which at first glance can translated. But words contain meaning beyond their meaning through valence, arousal, and dominance. Something said in one language will invoke images to one group not evoked once translated– think of words like justice, integrity, equality, freedom…

Words create images which spur the imagination and evoke emotion.

Additionally, when you read words on a page they can’t capture intended tone or intonation. In this way, you can’t grasp the complexity of what the orator is trying to convey. Smell, body language, facial expressions, atmosphere are all things forgone.

At this point in time, video calls have permeated the zeitgeist. Media conveys this as a digital revolution but it pays to keep in mind that they are a model of a model of a model.

Calls like these, especially without a webcam, are several integration levels deep. They lead to abstracting abstractions which causes an entirely different outcome then originally intended (see: the telephone game you played in grade school).

Anyone who only sees their family through video chat can tell you this.

So how can you add models to your mental framework?

Well, understand that they only show a part of the picture.

I have a friend that thought statistics was a 1:1 representation of reality (he also thought that he could eat McDonalds everyday if it kept within his caloric limits). He’ll probably call me after he sees this (Hi Nathan), but his gap in understanding comes with not viewing things from a holistic perspective. He was never taught interdependency.

It’s not that statistics aren’t incredibly useful, but they lack the complete picture. Models don’t account for complexity. Naturally they just can’t!

Keep this in mind to avoid pitfalls and sign up for the my newsletter today link in bio! (especially if your name starts with an I, T, or K 😉)