Thoughtscapes

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Making a World Open to Possibilities

Modeling, the process of generating models, alerts us to our mental-models.

Without modeling our mental-model is absolute. There can be no other way the world works, outcomes result, or change happens. Our world is closed of possibilities, choices and alternate designs that unfold alternate worlds.

The next best thing to modeling by ourselves is to have someone produce alternate models for us.

Either way, just as an outstanding artist is one who can paint the world as it could be, and not as it is, the outstanding modeler models the world as it could be, not as it is. Naturally, like the artist, or the designer, the modeler is open to a world of possibilities, an open world. The world is not a closed, deterministic space, but full of opportunities of what you can make it to be.

Just like the designer of spacecrafts creates something that could be, not a copy of something that is out there, the outstanding modeler creates designs of systems. Like the designers of spacecrafts take on the responsibility of the flying the astronauts safely, the outstanding modelers need to “fly” safely millions who are affected by the systems they model.

Outstanding modeling is therefore agile to perspectives, perceptions and a world of alternate possibilities. Like a play that opens the artists to bring out alternate performances together, modeling opens up colleagues to build teams that can unfold a world of possibilities.

Modeling creates a role, a script, acts and organizes the play. It bounds the performances, the possibilities or unleashes them. It defines and shapes the system that will be influenced and designed and the real world that, as a consequence, will be altered.

The absence of modeling is anarchy; a failure of governance.

Like Maxwell’s daemon, a being allowing only fast-moving molecules in a container to pass in one direction, is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, the absence of modeling is the very violation of civilization.

Our models or mental models are after all the bias and basis of the world we create. It is our means to live up to our responsibility to the millions who participate in the systems we design. It is our basis to identify our roles, play our scripts in the worlds we participate. If we have no way to model these, what else but anarchy can exist?

Do we have a shared mission to create civilization? What possibilities do you want to open up to your world today?

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