Models tie us to a mast of logic

Pintura de John William Waterhouse

Curso: Model Thinking, por Scott E Page 
Aqui

Why Models?
Reason #1: To be an intelligent citizen of the world.
Reason #2: They make us better clear thinkers.
Reason #3: To understand and use data.
Reason #4: To decide, strategize and design.

Models are the new lingua franca, they're the language of business, they're the language of politics, they're the knowledge of the non profit world.

Models tie us to a mast of logic, and by doing so, we figure out which ways of thinking, which ideas are useful.

Models are better than we are.

The accuracy of different ways of predicting ('Formal Models' do better):

Model by Philip Tetlock

Models are fertile. Once you learn a model for one domain, you can apply it to a whole other bunch of domains. You can also use them to find out who wrote a book.

Models make us humble. They make us see the full dimension of a problem.

Thinkers who use many models, know best. So what is really important, is to have many models.
The 'Foxes', who had lots of models, did much better than the 'hedghogs', who had no models (Philip tetlock). Formal models did better than 'Foxes'. People with lots of 'Formal models' will do even better. So the idea is to use multiple models.

Models make us clearer thinkers. They work through logic. They inductively explore. They allow us to understand the class of outcome [05:42]. They help us to identify logical boundaries [07:26]. models allow us to communicate our ideas and what we know, really simply [08:21].

Steps to build a model:
— Name the parts (people, money, places, preferences, etc)
— Identify relationships (and how things play out)

People use models to:
— Understand patterns
— Predict points [02:07]
— Produce bounds
— Retrodict
— Predict other stuff
— Inform data collection
— Estimate hidden parameters
— Calibrate

How can models help us?
— They can be real time decision aids.
— They can help us with comparative statics.
— They can help us with counter factuals.
— We can use them to identify and rank.
— They can help us with experimental design.
— They can help us design institutions, themselves.
— They can help us choose among policies and institutions.

All work and [little] play...

"In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was Genius. If the task of criticism is somehow to explain, or make guesses, or lead interesting speculations as to how works come to be or how they do what they do, the use of the term 'genius' must be eschewed. It reveals nothing. [...] Sometimes our use of the term 'genius' implies that we believe that there is a group of people with some fantastic natural capability to produce thoughts or objects out of thin air. [...] Bobby Fischer, the chess player, is commonly represented [...] as a unworldly genius. [...] And yet, for many years of his life, Fischer spent up to fourteen hours a day studying chess. The ten years before the world championship match that he won were spent with a chessboard by the bedside and stacks of chess books in every room. [...] Wittgenstein produced two extraordinary works of philosophy, but those works were the products of long, hard, sometimes disillusioning, years of thought and study."
Kamran Nazeer, in Send in the Idiots