I’m further exploring the notion of models and mental models. We often speak of mental models as though they’re neat packages of knowledge stored somewhere in the mind. These models are typically treated as internal blueprints and as simplified representations of the world that help us navigate and make decisions. But what exactly do we mean when we call something a model? And are we always speaking about the same kind of thing?

The term model, in both technical and informal contexts, carries more ambiguity than we often acknowledge. In classical cybernetics, W. Ross Ashby gave the concept a central role. For him, a model was a representation that could simulate the behavior of a system. A good regulator, he argued, must contain a model of the system it seeks to control. This model didn’t need to be a literal image or a complete mirror. It simply needed to have the right kind of functional correspondence with just enough structure to predict and act upon.

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