COMMENTS on T.I. Ören

Abstract

What is “model realism”? It is perhaps best described at this point as an aspiration toward developing modelling formalisms and methodologies that are closely representative of, or applicable to, reality. While we can not analyze what is this “reality” without getting into interminable philisophical complexities, we can set up a series of tests which would gage a methodology and its formalism for proximity or applicability to the real world. A framework for addressing modelling, and also design, methodologies in this way is given in Ören’s article. Implicit in his approach is the understanding that we cannot deal with model realism without stepping out beyond the confines of any one modelling paradigm (and the advocate of any such methodology would like us to keep ourselves enmeshed in its “world view”) to take a broader, more encompassirg perspective. True, it is important to know what the formalism is and how it solves problems. But more than this, we must ask what kinds of situations can it represent, what kinds of issues can it deal with, what kinds of checks can it bring to bear to assure its success, indeed most crucially, how will it determine what success means.