My thoughts on models, if I am understanding them correctly:
Understanding may not require a pre-existing model, although successful communication of understanding does.
I believe that models of reality are built within each of us from even within the womb, as various sensations approach us, we compare our expectations against the “what just happened” (which to me, seems to be approximately 400ms (the N400 effect I think it’s called) in humans to reach some sort of conscious awareness.
Once we leave the womb, we must begin social integration immediately or we die. (the famous situation in the 1930s with babies that were not picked up and coddled, versus those that were, died, along with other examples later on as well).
Pattern the face of the primary caregiven, upon which patterns of all other faces, including one’s own are compared against.
Understanding is a continual building of simplified models of reality if for no other reason for the simple fact that our brains are simply too small to contain all things in their uniqueness and in their entirety, so we have the ability to ‘notice’ ‘similar forms’ as it were as a data compression procedure, allowing us to count (we can ignore the uniqueness of these things and instead refer to them both as ‘apple’ for example).
Anyway, that is my understanding of models at their most basic level with regards to pre-lingual. I don’t see language as primary but stereotyped “expectations” and their comparison to the “what just happened” as primary, utilizing a process of non-lingual analogizing to hightlight distinctions while compressing the bulk of “similarness”.
I have been utilizing a tool to assist in classifying my own knowledge, or rather to help me understand, “What am I *really* talking about?”
My last comment comes up as:
DDC Confidence
120: Epistemology, causation & humankind 0.42
005: Computer programming, programs & data 0.19
190: Modern western philosophy 0.10
160: Logic 0.06
000: Computer science, information & general works 0.04
410: Linguistics 0.04
100: Philosophy & psychology 0.04
501: Philosophy & theory 0.04
via http://act-dl.base-search.net/textclassifier – so I do not know if that fits within the group or not, but utilizing a library dewey decimal classification tool is the best I’m able to do as far as categorizing and being honest about it. I’ve tested the results to my satisfaction, at least for my own writings. I don’t know how related it is to model dependent ontology, so I will await corrections.