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TERMS: INTERNAL MODELS In looking at complex systems that are living or social in nature, it is important to consider the nature of the internal structures or models of the agents in the system. Unlike nonliving agents, agents in complex adaptive systems behave in the following general way: they take in data from their environments, find regularities in the data, and compress these perceived regularities into internal models that are used to describe and predict its future. For example, a new person in a company will notice things that are going on and talk to people (take in data), figure out aspects of the company's culture in terms of how to dress or treat customers (find regularities in this environment), and form an understanding or mental model which she or he can use in the future to understand what to do when at work and to make educated guesses about what might happen in the future. What is really interesting about internal models is that they are characteristics of living or social agents at any hierarchical level of the complex system. An individual will form an internal mental model, while an organization also will "take in data, find regularities, and compress the regularities" into models that are called things like "procedures," "operating guidelines," "company policies," and so on. For an individual, the formation and modification of mental models is a fundamental characteristic of learning. Likewise, for an organization, the formation of "organizational internal models" is fundamentally what the notion of organizational learning is about. Finally, some authors, such as Murray Gell-Man, use the term "schema" in essentially the same way as with our term "internal models." |
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