What is the essence of ‘knowing‘ the world around us? When delving into understanding reality, how do we ‘know‘ something of it?
When trying to understand the world around us, by and large, we have to grapple with looking at the world from a human perspective or a human viewpoint. In exploring the various facets of reality through a human lens, we observe, understand and learn all about the world around us and the universe from our disposition as human beings here on this planet, in our own unique way.
There are two fundamental ways in which we understand the world: through our intuition and models.
Intuition
We have an innate sensate ability to perceive the world at various instances by just knowing something, without being able to explain the reasoning behind it.
When catching a ball that’s been thrown at you, you automatically position yourself to receive the ball without calculating the trajectory, distance and speed of the ball. But yet, you are able to spontaneously move your arm and hand to coincide with the ball and catch it precisely and grasp it within your palm, using the muscles in your arm and hand. You do this without knowing the details of what you just did, or how you just did it. You just do it.
Most movement in space is intuitive in this way. At a very basic level, you have the ability to just know to immediately make sense of where you and other objects are in space. That’s the beauty of our brains, which enable us to intuitively perceive the world through its innate sensibility. The fact that we have these intuitions is not by accident, as they are necessary for us to be able to make quick decisions and survive as complex beings in the world.
These intuitions give us a basis for all human understanding and have evolved along with our existence over time.
Models
A model is a way of representing something out there in the world. Along with a simplified representation of the system that is modelled, it includes the rules that govern how it behaves.
A model airplane has all the components of an airplane but with real components replaced with smaller plastic representations.
A similar model, but a mathematic one of a physical system is a model of a pendulum.
The properties of the system, the position and velocity of the pendulum, are represented as mathematical variables and the relationships between them are explained through equations.
Similarly, you can look at the model airplane and understand how the parts function and how the real airplane works. Likewise, an architectural model or any design related model is also similar.
Models are useful because they allow us to experiment on a system without having to manipulate the system itself. By manipulating the representations within the framework of a model, we can learn about a system and anticipate how it will behave.
A model allows us to describe the dynamics of a system, in a significant level of detail, with a much simpler calculation. We just have to ensure we use a model of sufficient complexity.
Explicit Models
How do models relate to intuition? The examples of models I have given are ‘explicit‘ models. Explicit models are not intuitive in themselves, but are built from fundamental concepts that we have intuitions about.
Building an explicit model is a way of reducing complex systems into intuitive building blocks. Thinking with our intuitions is automatic, hence, when we reduce a problem by simplifying it, we can effectively reason out the answer. Just like solving an equation step by step(breaking it down) to arrive at an answer.
Explicit models allow us to dive into enormous detail and to limitless complexity, to the extent that explicit models contradict our intuitive beliefs at certain instances. For example, we intuitively believe that spending money on ourselves will make us happiest. However, psychological experiments show we are far better spending it on others.
The scientific findings in today’s times are full of such variable contradictions.
Implicit Models
A lot of our mental representations of the world around us are built from ‘implicit‘ models. Our brains come already preloaded with the information of how to perceive the world around us, i.e. our brains are encoded with prior knowledge of how to represent the world and how it should behave accordingly.
For example, an explanation of these implicit models at work is when you are walking down the street. As you walk, your brain takes in the vast array of sensory information around you as you walk down the street. You observe, the street, the people, the sounds, the sun, its rays of light shining through the trees, the vehicles. You know where the pedestrians are and the distance between you and them and where the cars are, how fast they’re moving and how to avoid them and not get hit by them. You might not notice the kinds of leaves and the types of trees they are, but you are well positioned as you walk, anticipating the movements of the other pedestrians and vehicles.
What’s happening here is that your brain is taking in the vast sensory information and converting the stream of information into only that which is necessary for your survival. It then discards the unnecessary extra information. This is our brain’s eliminative process of choosing only selected information as needed for our survival as described so expressively by Huxley in The Doors Of Perception.
As this examples elaborates, we are in essence, using these implicit models to think intuitively.
Our primordial and fundamental intuitions are built into the structure of our brains as a result of evolution. Your intuition of where you are in space, comes from certain neurons in the brain called grid cells, which are specifically designed for this task.
Where Explicit & Implicit Models Overlap
An example of where these explicit and implicit models overlap and interchange can be found in music. Our brains have the ability to learn and adapt. A musician learning an instrument is an example of exactly how this unfolds.
For example, when a musician initially begins to learn the guitar or the piano or any instrument for that matter, he/she is presented with an explicit model of how the instrument is to be played. Namely the notes, the scales and chords and their interaction and position. However, after enough time passes, the musician’s brain makes an implicit model of the instrument in his/her brain and he/she is now able to now play the instrument intuitively and with feeling instead of by reasoning, thus converting an explicit model into an implicit one.
How The Brain Builds Models Of The World Around Us Through Simplification
To elaborate how our brains function in this eliminative process of funnelling information so that only what is necessary remains, we can take an example of a round coffee table with a blue top surface.
Now, when you look at the object, your brain knows that it’s a round, blue coffee table, not the collection of visual excitations caused by the light reflecting off the different surfaces of the table. You think of it as a singular representation, which is, a table. On top of this, you keep track of the particular characteristics of this object: it is blue, it has a round top and is closer to the ground and not very high, and is small in size.
This funnelling and breaking down of objects in the world around us into such simple representations allows us to think about them efficiently. It is much easier to mentally manipulate and recall a simplified representation than a complex representation with all the detailed properties of the object.
For instance, when you remember the round, blue coffee table, storing an exact image would contain a lot of irrelevant information. You would need to keep track of the changing shades of blue and hue difference caused by different shadows falling across the table; the size and shape and visual interaction of each of the edges of the table with the background; and so on.
It is easier and simpler to remember that it is a table with a few specific characteristics. As you already have significant prior knowledge of tables, you can use this limited information to reconstruct an image of the object in your mind as and when you wish to recall it.
Only Part Of The Picture: Our Models & Intuitions Can Never Fully Explain Reality
When it comes to what we call our reality, there is a huge gap in understanding between what we see, feel and experience and what is actually out there, if there is anything out there at all, as the renowned American theoretical physicist John Wheeler puts forth in this article which I keep coming back to from time to time “Does the Universe Exist if We’re Not Looking?“.
To expand further, through several experiments in quantum physics Wheeler notes.
Quantum physicists, marvel at the strange fact that quantum systems don’t seem to be definite objects localized in space until we come along to observe them — whether we are conscious humans or inanimate measuring devices. Experiment after experiment has shown — defying common sense — that if we assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective, observer-independent existence, we get the wrong answers. The central lesson of quantum physics is clear: There are no public objects sitting out there in some preexisting space. As the physicist John Wheeler put it, “Useful as it is under ordinary circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.”
Our models and intuitions can only go so far to explain what reality actually is. Sure, we now have a nice little roadmap of how we can begin to understand reality via these models and intuitions but they don’t give us a complete picture. With humanity’s gradual evolution through the centuries we have been genetically passed down these implicit ways of knowing the world around us. However, there is one overriding characteristic, these implicit ways in which we understand our reality are all stripped down and bare-boned to give us only that which is efficient for our survival. In other words a simplified version. So if something can be simplified, it will be.
The Quest Continues
We have been able to draw up numerous explicit models with enormous attention to detail and boundless complexity to explain so many aspects of the universe we perceive. This constant search to explain our experience here in the universe allows us to explore and expand on this wonderful gift of consciousness we have been presented with.
Will there ever be a theory of everything, that one single theory that unifies and explains our existence and answers all the basic questions of our existence? We will perhaps get there someday, at least that is the hope which drives the brightest minds on the planet.
However, as things are, let us marvel at this delightful experience and go about our daily activities with a passionate fervour as we continue to probe further into explaining the seemingly unexplainable, until then, the quest continues.
The view is nice though.
Part I
Part II here
Words For Reveries 
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