You are the proud new owner of an electric car (EV). As you proudly settle in for your first drive, you start to get familiar with your new car. You look for the start button and as you press it, you instinctively reach out for the brake pedal. The dashboard and the delightfully large screen next to the steering wheel lit up.
You think the car has started, but you aren’t sure. You expected the shudder of an engine when starting the car, but this new EV remained quiet. To confirm that you indeed started the car, you shift to drive and gingerly inch forward. Yay, the car moves, and you make a mental note that the EV’s start experience differs from your past ICE cars.
Next you reach down the seat to make yourself comfortable. Yep, the seat adjustment controls are where you expect them, and they work in the same way. After that, you look at the side mirrors and reach out to the panel to adjust them. Yes, there’s the familiar switch to choose which side mirror to adjust and the four direction controls to adjust the side mirror’s angle.
Then you look at the rear-view mirror and adjust it for your new position. That big cardboard box you left in the backseat is obstructing your rear view. While adjusting the mirror, you remember the delivery technician mentioned the digital rear-view mirror. You find that button and turn it on to get an unobstructed view of the road behind the car. The cardboard box no longer obstructs your rear view.
As you admire this new feature, you understand that you don’t need to worry about keeping your rear window clear because the digital rear-view “mirror” doesn’t rely on the rear window to show you the road behind you. You make another mental note.
You prepare to drive but notice something different about the dashboard. In the past, you saw a few lights such as the Engine Temperature, Check Engine, and Oil Pressure lights that briefly flickered when you started the car. Then they turned themselves off unless there was a problem.
You restart the car to see if you missed something. You were right. Those familiar lights aren’t there, but a couple of new warning lights were present. You know that EVs are different from ICE cars and don’t use oil, so you no longer need the engine temperature and oil pressure lights. However, you don’t know what the new warning lights in the EV mean, so you grab the manual to take a quick look. By the end of this exercise, you understand the differences in the warning lights. You make another mental note.
Your Mental Model
Before you got into your new EV, you understood how a car operated. This is a good example of a mental model. It allowed you to hop into your friend’s car and drive it after making a few quick adjustments. That same mental model guided you as you started with your new EV. But your new EV is a bit different so you had to adapt what you knew about driving a car. As you figured out the differences, you refined your mental model. Now you can hop into another ICE car or EV and your updated mental model guides you to quickly adjust and drive that car.
What are Mental Models?
A mental model acts like a blueprint in our minds, built from our experiences and knowledge. It allows us to predict how things work, make decisions, and process new information. Just as an architect creates a model to visualize a building, our brains create mental models to understand the world around us. It’s a simplified representation of reality that we use to make predictions, decisions, and solve problems.
Mental models are generally personal, formed and used by an individual, although they can be shared or influenced socially. They are used for personal understanding and decision making.
Importance of Mental Models
For a significant part of human history, many cultures held the belief that the Earth was flat. This mental model suggested that if sailors traveled too far, they might reach the edge of the world and fall off. This belief was largely based on observational reasoning: from a person’s vantage point on the ground, the Earth appears flat.
This mental model severely limited exploration. For centuries, sailors and explorers were hesitant to venture too far from known lands, fearing the unknown dangers of the “edges” of the Earth. Navigational maps of the time often depicted uncharted territories with mythical creatures and warnings of “Here be dragons,” reflecting the mysteries and fears of the unknown.
However, as navigational technology and astronomical understanding advanced, we were able to update the mental model of a flat Earth to a spherical Earth. This shift in perspective is a prime example of how a deeply ingrained mental model can restrict human progress.
Mental Models in Our Project
As mentioned in A Simple Manifesto, we will be dealing with a wide range of subjects over time. An appropriate mental model can help cut through complicated topics and simplify them. An incorrect mental model can cause confusion. We will strive to provide clear mental models when we deal with a non-trivial topic. Sometimes this may involve pointing out the flaws in a popular mental model on a specific topic and updating it to simplify it.
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