When I observe how I think, how common normal people think, I see that we do a lot of model making and use those models to predict outcomes. Example: financial stability in a man implies good husband, good school implies good career, a job candidate with good grades implies good employee (I was recently reviewing resumes for a position in our office). Another type of example is: I am very interested in understanding how and why we are afraid of spiders and cockroaches, regardless of what the actual answer is, it is going to be a model of how our mind works for the specific topic (e.g. answer could be that “we are genetically programmed to react this way” - which is a small model for how we work)
I have become quite sensitive to this process over the last few weeks. I don't know how long this sense will last but it is fun.
These models in our mind are very important for us, they are the only basis for action and all decisions we make are based on predictions we make using these models. I see two problems with this:
The models do not past the test of time. This is both good and bad. On the one hand it means we learn and revise our models based on new experience. On the other hand it also means that the confidence that we normally have in them at the time of making decisions is not well founded, over time we will probably revise the models we used to make the decision. Which leads us to the question, what is right action and what is the basis of right action?
How can we observe, analyse the models and the process of modelmaking? I see no other way than to use models to understand models. There is this cycle, a trap I am not able to get out of.
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