Re: [FRIAM] "model" ( was Re: Dunbar numbers and distributions)

[Steve Smith]

Apologies for another long thread... thanks to Glen for a well written response to my original... and apologies to Owen (and others)  if this thread divergence represents a "hijacking" of the original thread. Quoting Steve Smith circa 09-11-25 01:50 PM: It is even less surprising that those whose rhetoric is in opposition to that rhetoric would attempt to justify their *own* rhetoric based on this failure on the part of the individuals/institutions in question to be entirely unbiased in every way. First, I have to say that I actually laughed out loud at that one. Thanks. Happy to entertain!   I don't remember if it was you or another who suggested that a great deal of what transpires on this list is "all in fun".   I'm pretty sure most of us engage here for one type of entertainment or another.   Mine is usually rooted in my finely honed sense of morbid fascination alongside my general appreciation for the very sharp wits (whits?) here. Can you give us more justification for subsuming modeling into rhetoric? Let's look at some examples of what a model can be. A model can be examples elided for brevity Now, all these examples have an existence of their own, outside any _modeling_ context. For example, (1) is just a stick that you can poke someone's eye out with or burn for heat. You can make a paper airplane out of (5) and fly it across the room, etc. Examples of (6) are currently driving the heater for my office. ;-) Agreed, though I depend more on things like 5) to drive my woodsto When they're not being USED to model something else, they are just whatever they are. In order for them to be models, they must be _used_ to express something. Usually, they are used to make a persuasive argument for or against something. For example, I may use (1) to show you that my computer is wider than yours. Or I may use (4) to show you that some crazy idea I have about the Higgs boson isn't all that crazy. In other words, a model isn't a model until it is _used_ rhetorically. This is where we still differ.   In 30 years of modeling and visualization work, I have found that very few models, simulations or visualizations of the results (visualizations often embedding their own models and simulation to fill in for the incompleteness of the models/simulations they are (re)presenting) get by without being used _rhetorically_ but more often than not they were conceived or built with a much more _analytic_ intent and their major *value* often turns out to be _synthetic_.   That is to say, a well conceived/designed/built model (especially those with a strong visual representation component) often end up exposing knew knowledge to the creators of the model.   New relationships are discovered that were obscured by the obscurity of the system being modeled or formal language of the _expression_ of the model. Now, you might say that these models are used non-rhetorically when, say, a furniture maker constructs a chair or somesuch. But, I would counter that the furniture maker is engaged in a never-ending dialogue with herself _while_ they're making the chair. The dialogue consists of a kind of primitive rhetoric where the brain persuades the fingers and the fingers persuade the brain, or one part of the brain persuades another, etc. Most especially, however, the chair designer persuades the chair maker via models like rulers and schematics. And that's true even if the designer and the maker are the same person separated by time. All models are always rhetorical devices. An object can be a rhetorical device without being a model (like when I use a yard stick to slap you for not paying attention to my rhetoric). I'm still not clear that all models *must be* rhetorical devices, though I do concede (again) that they are generally useful (and therefore used) for that.  Can you make the case that analysis and synthesis are also forms of rhetoric?   I don't know that I'm justified in this, but I think of rhetoric as being an intentional act of persuasion by a sentient being.   If we expand rhetoric to include the case where the _model_ persuades the _modeler_ to believe something formerly not understood (or believed) about the system _modeles_ then I would concede.  But otherwise, I think claiming that modeling is always a form of rhetoric hides that fact that most of (real) science is not about persuasion but rather discovery.  Persuasion comes after discovery in *good science* methinks Can one write a simulation without a model? Yes. Simulations can come into being in all sorts of ways, including randomly. I do think that evolutionary programming could be claimed to fit this somewhat, but in the interest of splitting hairs, I would suggest that there is a "meta model" involved...  a model of what a "generic" simulation is, including some kind of MOE to help guide the selection of the simulation.  When real world systems appear to mimic eachother, I would not call one a simulation of the other but rather more like convergent or parallel evolution or more often, systems whose underlying dynamics are constrained/informed (whatever that means) by the same mathematics.   It is *we*, the sentient beings who impose on the two systems some kind of model that we then attribute according to our points of view, etc.  Don't you think? However, a simulation isn't a simulation unless it's also a model. You can't mimic something unless ... well, unless you're mimicking something. Yes, it is built into the definition of simulation I suppose. In my lexicon, a model is presumed to have a referent but there are many, many, many unvalidated models in the world (perhaps you call these theories, hypotheses, etc.) whose referent's qualities and perhaps even existence is still in question. I do not know what a theory or even hypothesis is, if not a model. Perhaps without "proof" or "validation" it is a proto-model? Right. There is no such thing as an unvalidated model. If you can't validate, then you're just speculating (or theorizing). Now, validation can be achieved in a _huge_ number of ways, including qualitatively. So, you have to think carefully before you claim a body of rhetoric is NOT a model. The main method for determining this is asking the question: "What could I measure with that rhetoric?" If you can't measure anything with it, then it's not a model. OK... so we agree that a model without *any* form of validation can be no more than rhetoric... but I still don't agree that it *has to be* rhetorical... though that is the obvious motivation behind creating a (psuedo) model... to be persuasive. A model can be a theory or a thesis because a model can contain theorems and sentences. (And the way we use the term "hypothesis" in science, a model can also be a hypothesis... In fact, the way both words model and hypothesis are used in science, all models are hypotheses because some parts of every model are _always_ unjustified.) And all models are always only partially validated?   So there is some imaginary threshold of validation where you would call a model "mere rhetoric"?   Much rhetoric is grounded in anecdotal evidence and can even have *scads* of anecdotal evidence (high quantity, very low quality).   D But not all theories or theses are models (though the pretense is that scientific theories and theses _are_ all models... otherwise they aren't "scientific"). For the most part, those who fund modeling (and simulation) are seeking to justify their own rhetoric, not inform it. I've been lucky to a certain extent because I've been able to turn down projects where the client seems like they want only rhetoric and no models. So, in most cases, I make it clear to my clients that there's no (ethical) point in building the rhetoric unless you have data with which to falsify the model. I don't make that much money, though. And I don't have many clients. [sigh] I like to think I could have made much more money and landed many more clients had I been willing to generate non-model rhetoric. And in my experience, the evidence that the client is more interested in rhetoric than in the data or a valid model comes out near the end of the project, not at the beginning.   With suitable cynicism, it is easy to anticipate this, but hard to anticipate the opposite (recognize a righteous client when you see one). My own rhetoric (used mostly in the privacy of my own head) is that I knowingly model in support of other's rhetoric to obtain the funds to allow me to do my own model development in the pursuit of a higher truth. It's perfectly reasonable to build models that support a client's rhetoric as long as the client is willing to change their rhetoric when all the models built in support of the old rhetoric are falsified. Yeah... imagine that.   It's a good idea and I suppose I've seen it happen now and again, but usually something almost *more* nefarious happens... instead of abandoning the old tired (and clearly misbegotten) rhetoric for something more well justified in the light of the data and the models (and.. and... and...) I often have found that the client simply adopts an even more bizzarre rhetoric that isn't contradicted by the data/model but isn't necessarily well supported by it either. The goal of modeling is to _reify_ the rhetoric... to make it real enough so that it can be used to measure reality. I agree that *a* goal of modeling can be to reify the rhetoric.   I suppose I'm coming around (a little) to your use of the term rhetoric... in that I appreciate that well accepted and highly supported (by data and models) theories start out as pretty unsupported theories which start out as almost completely unsupported hypothesis which are pretty much "rhetoric" even if the only one being persuaded is the person creating the hypothesis and seeking a model that helps fit the data to it which in turn helps too shape where one should seek more data. Usually, during the process, what actually happens is that reality is used to measure the model. Then the model (and the rhetoric) is changed so that it matches up with reality. At that point, you have a good enough basis flip it around and start using the model to measure reality. I'll have to think on this more, as I want to argue that the act of using reality to measure the model involves inserting "yet another model" into the game which is roughly what validation is all about anyway...  stacking a series of more and more sophisticated models up from ones that seem to be so brutally simple that they cannot be argued. My model of "a higher truth" includes objective reality and does not admit to supernatural beings or forces. It has been proven to my satisfaction that I cannot validate this model. e.g. I cannot prove that there is an objective reality. Therefore *all* of my models are ultimately grounded in a model which I cannot prove a valid referent. That only slows me down when I'm in a particularly philosophical mood. The rest of the time I proceed blithely. I'm in complete agreement, here. If this post weren't already too long, though, I'd pick at the one nit you left. Your models _are_ grounded in a model you can prove. You just don't take the time to use that model (i.e. sensory motor processes in your fingers, ears, eyes, etc.). Instead you use an abstraction of that model that shunts out all that nitty gritty detail. Hm. I guess I picked at the nit anyway. Sorry. We should spawn a separate thread on this (or not).    My point is that my sensory-motor processes (or more aptly the abstract model I hold of them) is an unvalidatable model.   I cannot prove that there is an objective reality in which my body (and it's sensory-motor apparatus) is physical object, etc...  I take it as a contingent truth, not expecting to ever have it confronted (this model of my experience is supported by huge amounts of what amounts to anecdotal evidence, but there is no experiment I can execute or data I can gather that will differentiate objective reality from subjective illusion/simulation/???)...  - Steve

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