Models as Tools for Knowledge - Essay Example

Models as Tools for Knowledge This discussion examines the thesis that “Models may help or hinder the search for knowledge”. To set the premises forour discussion we begin with the operational definition of “model” and “knowledge.” Knowledge is commonly taken to be synonymous with skills and expertise, but it is also that body of verified truths that are accepted by a society’s intelligentsia. On the other hand, models are simplified representations of a real-world objects, phenomena, or events. Models are used in reasoning, in making inferences or in providing explanations and promoting understanding (Sterrett, 2003). Immediately, from the descriptions we run into a quandary. First, knowledge is the body of truths at a point in time, but not absolute truth because those things which we concede as knowledge now change with time. As an example, it used to be part of knowledge that the sun revolved around the earth – which is obviously anathema to today’s knowledge. Second, models cannot all be simplified representations because there are so many types of what we refer to as “models” that are not at all simple. For instance, Einstein’s E=mc2 is a model of time, mass and energy interrelated, but there is nothing at all simple about it beyond the symbols, the letters and the number. To this model we have credited the reality of travelling through space and the probability of travelling through time is a monumental stretch of the imagination. It thus occurs to us that a model is a tangible (though not necessary simple) representation of something intangible. It is tangible in the context that it may be perceived with the five senses. In such a case, the national anthem of a country is a model – an auditory representation of a nation, which is why we stand at attention and sing it with reverence. “Nation” itself is a model embodied in flesh and blood, because beyond its legal definition of being a group of people in a territory, “nation” represents the sum total of a history and culture going back through centuries, of aspirations and legacies unique in all the world. No wonder that the extinction of a nation is so devastating, because it conveys the irreversible demise of a way of life. Thus a model may be simple in form, but complex in comprehension because it conveys an essence deep and cerebral. Sometimes, models reflect a unique insight that originates in the mind of one person. The insight is so new and so abstract that it becomes difficult, or even impossible, to communicate to another person without using some sort of aid or tool to convey the idea to the senses. Abstract sculptures and paintings are models that embody an artist’s insight of how texture and form, light and shadow, hue and color, can evoke emotions of joy, sorrow, dread, rage, or tranquillity. Oftentimes, the original thinker has to find some metaphor for it that is within the recipient’s comprehension. The novelist Ayn Rand published a novel in 1957 that represented the resistance by innovators and industrialists of government’s increasingly socialist control. The title of the novel is “Atlas Shrugged,” and in this metaphor Rand used as model that artwork of a man that carried the world on his shoulders. In two words, Rand conveys the message of the novel: the people who carry the weight of society may just someday decide to shrug off this weight, to their emancipation and society’s detriment. Because of the depth of the ideas it stands for, a model may be capable of many interpretations representing bits and pieces of its entirety. Sometimes, because of personal limitations, we perceive one part of the model but fail to comprehend the other parts, and therefore are misled as to the true nature of the idea conveyed. This calls to mind a Hindu parable about the six blind men and the elephant. In a quaint poem dating back to the 19th century, John Godrey Saxe (1816-1887) narrated the story of the six men of Indostan desired to satisfy their minds about the nature of the elephant. Naturally, the only efficacious way for them to do this (being blind) is to feel the elephant, except that each of them felt a different part of its anatomy. The blind man who felt its side declared it to be a wall; the one who felt its tusk thought it was much like a spear. Likewise, the trunk felt like a snake, the gnarled knee felt like a tree, the ear a fan and the tail a rope. Thus, the six blind men quarrelled as to the true nature of the elephant, whether it was wall, spear, snake, tree, fan or rope. Each man had a different model of the elephant in mind, and confining their minds to each model kept each of them in ignorance of what an elephant truly is. In much the same way, we may have different mental models of the same thing because of our different experiences and points of view. Some models may be conceived as being in the nature of a shorthand message, reducing a stream of related ideas into a concise presentation. In this sense, E=mc2 earlier mentioned is a model of the relativity theory. Chemical configurations are a class of models that represent how atoms are arranged in molecules, a thing too complex for most of us to understand. However, because it is in “shorthand” form, much depends on the receptivity of the audience to the ideas it presents. If the model’s presentation was inadequate or the recipients of the model’s message lacked the preparation, then the knowledge the message would have wanted to convey is not received or understood. For instance, by the time we finish high school most of us are familiar with the periodic table of elements. The elements are arranged in the table in such a way that they are sorted progressively according to their atomic number and juxtaposed according to their attributes. People who were not knowledgeable about what the atomic number meant (i.e., the number of protons in the atom) and the attributes that group together certain elements, would appreciate or even understand the beauty and utility of periodic table than those who had instruction in chemistry. Biological models represent another interesting type of representation, that of life itself. Through the years, countless scientists have arrived at a system of classification of known life forms that proceeds through some form of scientific taxonomy – starting with the domain at the top, down through the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. The present model, however, is never complete. There was a time when Aristotle taught that life was either genus or species; the Aristotelian model does not include phylum, class, and so forth (Mayr & Bock, 2002). Thus, as man learned more about his environment, he learned to change and adapt his model of how life forms should be conceived of, thereby defining life itself. The evolution of the biological model is due to additional incremental knowledge gathered through the years. Thus, the inadequacy is due to limitations in our collective knowledge at that point in time. Seldom are models intentionally misleading, although there have been some in our history that by current standards could only be described as evil. Hitler’s fascism was founded on a model of systematic white supremacy, but even long before he was born, the white supremacy model was alive and well in the land of the free; in fact, Americans fought Americans in the Civil War in challenge to and defense of this very model. By the time the Second World War came about and Hitler was sending millions of Jews to the concentration camps and his scientists conducting experiments that mutilate even children and babies, America had abolished slavery but retained segregation, championing freedom and human rights abroad while practicing discrimination at home. Duality and contradiction of two models existing side by side in a single socio-political system – this was the American dilemma in the first half of the twentieth century. Such a situation begs the question: in the light of contemporaneous developments, how may people discern when a model informs or misleads? The widespread acceptance and propagation of models testify to their seeming credibility and rationality at the time they become prevalent in society. The truth is, human thought are conditioned by models, because these are legacies handed down from the collective wisdom of generations who have gone before. In the process of development, models are challenged and proved or disproved by succeeding generations, but far from being a foolproof process, it is rather a progression of hits and misses. So far, the hits appear to outnumber the misses, as the body of knowledge that persists from one generation to the next continually grows. In the end, it is true that models are invaluable tools in the transmission of knowledge, but it is also true that models tend to hinder true knowledge when the theories they transmit have ceased to be relevant or have been disproved by more recently acquired knowledge. Knowledge changes, models change with knowledge, and peoples’ perceptions about knowledge and models likewise change in time. These are all dynamics of social development that will remain with the human race while it continues to exist. References Das, S 1999 “Six Blind Men & the Elephant: A Hindu Parable, From John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)” About.com Hinduism. Accessed 15 January 2011 from http://hinduism.about.com/od/hinduismforkids/a/blindmen.htm Fredrickson, G 1981 White Supremacy. Oxford University Press. Oxfordshire Mayr, E & Bock, W J 2002 “Classifications and other ordering systems,” Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research, vol. 40, pp. 169-194 Sterrett, S G 2003 Kinds of Models. Accessed 27 November 2010 from http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2363/1/SterrettKindsOfModelsArchive.pdf Read More