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Originally Posted by Len Moran
The use of the term model is an acknowledgment that our knowledge of the actual is not complete and thus must always be representative of something out of reach (temporarily or permanently), so models can never be fully faithful to what they actually model, for then we would know the actual.
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And although I would agree with the truth of that, I think it does not go far enough-- it tends to support the misconception that models somehow fail us by not being the actual. What fails us is our intelligence; the models
serve us (notwithstanding my signature).
The point of a model is to simplify, because we don't want the actual, we want something we can understand. That's the whole point of the exercise (which is why Occam's Razor is not a minor element of science, it is the core of science).
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If we choose not to define our scientific truths as models, then they become states of practical knowledge rather in the manner in which we practice engineering - EM radiation can be though of propagating electric and magnetic waves and we design an antenna as if the electric wave was a real physical entity.
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That is so, and indeed imagine a child asking three famous scientists and engineers "what is light"? One might answer, EM radiation, another might say, particles of various energies obeying quantum mechanics, and another might say elementary excitations of a field with a certain mathematical structure. None of those answers sound anything alike, yet all are "correct models"-- when applicable. The model is tailored to the need-- reality is not.
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That pursuit has revealed a notion of unreachable absolute reality, but I don't see this as insulating us from nature, I see it as very much defining our place within nature.
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Yes, I think it can be both-- we have to accept some limitations to achieve the desired results.