Modelling vs Reality
summary
Argues that everyday categories and precise models systematically diverge: cognition uses prototype vs classical models and basic-level categories, producing graded membership, non‑transitive judgments and many edge cases; technical modeling (laws, software types) forces precision and provokes an explosion of near‑duplicates, accumulated assumptions and inertia. Uses cognitive experiments, taxonomy examples (apes, tomatoes, penguins), and welfare‑law clauses to show that precision comes at a cost and that edge cases become regular cases requiring explicit design choices.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Modeling vs reality
- 3:50Folk theory of categories wrong
- 16:35Categories in the human brain
- 22:35Categories in practice vs reality
- 33:16Categories and hierarchies
- 43:40Transitivity and messy categories
- 48:41Category boundaries in software
- 51:10Technification of categories
- 55:29Cost of assumptions and debt
- 58:17Designing technical categories
- 1:00:03Conclusion and Q&A
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