[NetBehaviour] Why Models Are Always Wrong

[manik]

...yes...scary...MANIK...OCTOBER...2011...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob Myers" <rob at robmyers.org>
To: "netBehaviour for networked distributed creativity" 
<netbehaviour at netbehaviour.org>
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 9:18 PM
Subject: [NetBehaviour] Why Models Are Always Wrong


As a child I could never work out what a + b = c meant. I mean what
should a and b and c *be*? Of course the answer is that they have any
number of possible values. That's the power of equations. But when you
are trying to fit equations to reality, it can be a problem:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=finance-why-economic-models-are-always-wrong

Even if you have a perfect economic model with perfect data, calibrating
the model doesn't have a single answer. So even in a perfect world,
economic models can and will give incorrect answers.

Bear in mind that both the financialized, high-frequency-trading, casino
capitalism side of the economy and the
government-management-of-the-economy side are based on ever more complex
models.

And I think there's a more general problem that this illustrates.
Presumably it's not just economics but philosophy, politics, theology,
aesthetics, any kind of quantitative model of reality will suffer from
this problem.

Which is a scary thought.

- Rob.
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