Homo Simulatus

A UNIVERSAL COMPUTER CONTEMPLATES ITSELF

You can never truly recapture the past in memory. When we look back, it is not like a tape recording. We view those memories from an adjusted perspective -- the lens of every mental model we have acquired in the interim.

The only way to record memories as they happen is with a diary, since transcribing the experience to text captures the mindset of the writer at the time.

What is a mental model? Mental models are our way of deconstructing the world.

Suppose you want to make a 3D game engine. Any engine designed to reflect reality requires an approximation of universal physical principles. First you simulate gravity (perhaps crudely), then lighting, reflections, radiosity. Then ragdoll, collision, or deforming terrain models. To make a truly effective simulation, you would also need models of air, water, and smoke. 

The more models that approximate known principles, the better the simulation.

Each of us also simulates reality, within the engine of our minds. Our models are philosophical in nature -- relating to ethics, human nature, and the like. We apply known-good principles or axioms as heuristics. As we acquire new information and experiences, we gain the ability to employ new models, and through them to recognise new parts of reality.

Reality may only be understood by first deconstructing it in the ‘engine’ within our minds. Having better models makes for a more effective abstraction.

Mental model acquisition relates directly to the development of the prefrontal cortex in late adolescence and early adulthood. This area of the brain, the latest evolutionary development in our cognitive functioning, is essentially a reality simulator. It enables us to plan, to strategise, and to understand consequences.

I wonder if it is possible to teach and learn certain models in an efficient way. My gut tells me that short-cuts through hard-bitten life experience are very difficult to provide, but there might be a few ways. I hope to explore this further.