Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

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MENTAL MODEL · M13306

Scientific Representation

Scientific Representation
TechnicalHigh supportScientific Methodology
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Updated 2026-09-10

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Science provides representations of atoms, particles, polymers, populations, pandemics, economies, rational decisions, airplanes, earthquakes, forest fires, irrigation systems, and the global climate, and it is through these representations that we come to know the world. The philosophical question is what the representational relation between a model and the world amounts to, and similarity, structuralist, and inferential conceptions compete as answers.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Model interpretation: judge which distortions of a model count as idealization and which as error. - Inference borrowing: derive concrete conclusions about the target system from the model. - Surrogate construction: build a workable surrogate object for a phenomenon that lacks a theory.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

The representational relation between model and world is hard to spell out because a model is plainly not merely like its object: models permit distortion, idealization, and misrepresentation yet still have cognitive value. Similarity cannot explain this, since a model can deliberately be unlike its target and still work, so many approaches turn instead to inference.

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Source support: Explicit

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    plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-representation/ZH · Explicit
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