A Look Under The Hood of Modeling People

In a more charitable version of turning people into models, I like to think that we are trying to understand complexity that is so difficult to predict that we need to suspend elements of that complexity in order to make inferences. Suspending the grouping of elements that make up the difference between people and their predictable actions, or models, allows us to gain insights on the macro scale. This process while powerful does open the door to the bias of the modeler(s) because they are characterizing the interstitial connections between actions and thoughts about a particular phenomena that make up a complete, repeated process. This can be somewhat mitigated by the craft of the modeler. If they are able to complete their model of an ecosystem or one of its moments, then the need to reconcile with the facts, actions of the person being modeled, within phenomena create a backdrop that will stand in contrast to extraneous data or presumptions of the modeler. To an extent a complete model or story can be interrogated and used to correct bias that no longer seems congruent with the behavior or intent of the persona being modeled. The final piece comes into place when the model is settled on and the information of the person that was previously set aside is reintroduced to create an even richer understanding of what is really happening.