<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Oh gosh. I should have something to say about this note the use of modal language <div>(}8-(]<br><br><div dir="ltr">Sent from my Dumb <span style="font-size: 17pt;">Phone</span></div><div dir="ltr"><br>On Dec 8, 2022, at 7:45 PM, Prof David West <profwest@fastmail.fm> wrote:<br><br></div><div dir="ltr"><span>I missed this morning's vFriam, but had I attended I would have raised the following questions for discussions. Perhaps the list will indulge me.</span><br><span></span><br><span>The central question: is there a difference between a 'model' of something and a 'theory' of something?</span><br><span></span><br><span>To me: a model is a representation of a subset of what we know about something; a theory is the complete body of knowledge.</span><br><span></span><br><span>In my book-in-development I talk about how to create a shared theory by having people come together and tell stories about their domain. The telling of stories creates a shared theory of the domain (or some subset of it that is of immediate concern) that continues to exist—in the participant's heads. While the story telling proceeds two graphics are generated: one with the stories themselves (as 'index cards') and relations among stories, e.g., story a extends story b, story c provides an alternative case for a, x is a revision of a, etc.; and two, a Gestalt Map that shows objects as bubbles and connecting lines as relations among those objects.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Those on the other side of the debate contend that these are models, just like the models they typically use in software development..</span><br><span></span><br><span>I say they are not, they are merely a form of 'external memory' a collection of evocative triggers whose sole purpose is to prompt a 'recall to mind' of the actual stories that were told involving those objects or those relations. The Gestalt Map, in my mind, represents nothing and could not—as is assumed about all other models—convey information to anyone who had not participated in the story telling session.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Specific questions:</span><br><span>1- Is the Wheel of Life mandala, (attached) a model of Tibetan Buddhist Cosmology? Or, does it merely serve the purpose of recalling to mind the stories that a Tibetan would have heard about the world and how it works.</span><br><span>2- Is a card catalog (forgive me, I am old) a model of a library, or even of its collection?</span><br><span>3- Are the Dewey Decimal or the Library of Congress numbering systems, models of human knowledge?</span><br><span>4- Is it correct to say that Quantum Physics has a superlative model, but no theory? (The dictum to, "to shut up and compute" seems to support an affirmative answer to this question.</span><br><span>5- is a metaphor a model?</span><br><span></span><br><span>For a short time, Model Driven Development garnered attention in software development: The idea was you could build a complete, accurate, and unambiguous model of a domain, then use a series of formal transforms (ala mathematics) to generate executable code. No one, outside of academia, believes this much anymore, but, in less drastic form, dominates all of software development and has nearly from the beginning, e.g., CASE and Rationale's 'round-trip-engineering'.</span><br><span></span><br><span>I am writing about what might be called Theory-Driven Development and it is important that I be able to explain the difference between theory and model.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Thanks for any thoughts any of you might have.</span><br><span></span><br><span>davew</span><br><div><wheel_of_samsara_thanka.jpg></div><span>-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .</span><br><span>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv</span><br><span>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</span><br><span>to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</span><br><span>FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</span><br><span>archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</span><br><span> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</span><br></div></div></body></html>