202402201526 Everything we think we know about reality is a model

Everything we think we know about reality is a model. Our models do have a strong congruence with the world. Our models [also] fall far short of representing the real world fully.¹

The purpose of 202203210833 Systems thinking is to make useful models of reality. There are major conflicts here: 202203210832 Models are necessarily incomplete, 202203210831 Models are immutable but reality isn't, and 202203210830 When your model and reality conflict, reality is always right. We know tremendous amounts about the world we live in and the systems we study, but at the same time we know preciously little. Our ignorance always far outpaces our knowledge (epistemology #thread and "I know that I know nothing" 202109071225 Socrates #thread) but at the same time, it's important for us to develop methods for rationalizing about reality. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to actually exist, live, and thrive in the real world.