With this understanding with us, it is time to take this a bit further and look closer at what a mental model is all about. A mental model is going to be a blueprint of how you can boost up the cognitive engine’s capacity to make decisions that are more strategic and intelligent. A mental model is going to be just a one-dimensional view of reality. This means that if we want to make sure that we have a better view of multi-dimensional reality, you would need to work with more than one of these mental models at a time. When we are working on a real-life situation, we are going to not rely on a single model but will rely on a mental multi-model instead.
This brings up the question of why these mental models are so important. Just like software is able to help direct some of the functional behaviour that we see with a computer, a mental model is going to help to direct some of the functional behaviour of your brain, and because of that, it directs the rest of your body as well.
Using the analogy of the computer a bit more, you will be able to more easily see and deduce some of the core reasons that make it imperative to start using these mental models in your own life. Some of the biggest reasons why these mental models are so prevalent and such a great option for you to use in your life includes:
● They are efficient: A mental model is going to help the brain learn how to run more efficiently, especially when it comes to dealing with some tasks that may be repetitive and routine. This is going to allow the brain to be more creative and to focus on novel inputs instead.
● Effectiveness: These mental models are going to help limit the errors that we see, and will make sure there is less wasted effort. This is going to make the brain power more effective in delivering the outcome that you are looking for.
● Economy: This is a term that is all about the efficient and effective utilization of the resources that we have. the brain is going to need a ton of different resources to help it operate. In fact, you will find that the brain is the most resource-intensive organ in the whole body. Because of this, any increment to the effectiveness and efficiency of the brain means that you are going to use your resources more wisely.
● Certainty: The mental model is going to help you bring about some level of certainty when it comes to common challenges in your life. Because of this, a mental model is able to coordinate the brain function of several people inside the same team or group. This means that the model is going to bring in a bit of predictability that you need when it is time to handle challenges and more.
● Productivity: With certainty and economy added to the mix, the productivity that you will see with the brain is going to go higher. In the end, the productivity of not just the individual person, but also the whole team, is going to go up.
The neat thing is that these mental models are going to be able to do a lot of different things for you. They can first step in and enable you to see the world in a more accurate manner, and then you can use this new form of accuracy to predict the future in a much better way than it would have been without them. This model can also help you to form a new mastermind kind of alliance because you will then be able to find some people who can suit your model and then the connections that are built up from this are going to be mutually beneficial.
These connections are important because they will sharpen up the mental model that you have, making them more precise. And finally, the mental model is going to help you to generate some breakthrough ideas because they will have a unique angle view of the situation that is at hand.
Another thing that we need to take a look at before we move on with these mental models is the origins of them, or how they got started. we are not able to tell with a great deal of certainty where these models begin with because it is believed they started at the beginning of time. while we are going to be able to create some mental models deliberately from our knowledge, it is possible to have some mental models that are created in a more instinctive manner.
For example, it is possible to have one of these models etched into the genes. It is going to be these that will help an infant learn how to respond to some of the external stimuli in a certain way that we can predict from the moment they are born. For example, all infants know how to respond to heat and light, how to identify their mother, how to suck, and how to cry, even though they had no chance to learn how to do these things. Over time though, the infant is going to develop some of their own mental models so they learn the best way to communicate and interact with their mother.
Because of this, it is believed that these mental models are going to be as old as humankind. We can call some of them primal mental models. But then there are the mental models that we can create for our own needs, the higher or the secondary mental models. These are the ones that we are going to consciously and deliberately generate out of our learning and some of the practice experiences that we have.
Even with this in mind, some of these secondary models are going to be etched into our genes after some time if we use them in the proper manner. This is done to help future generations learn how to cope and adapt with some of the changing environment that is out there. For example, epigenetics is going to be an interesting field of study that can help us to look this over a bit more as well.
