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In a world where GPS is at our fingertips, most people take maps for granted. It is obscure that the oldest preserved maps had little to do with reality. Babylonian world mapwas, for example, a clay tablet the size of a first-generation iPhone. The map, created between 700 and 500 BC, shows Babylon in the center, with the Euphrates River running through the center and the ocean on all sides. How Smithsonian Magazine explains, it was not a map for navigation – fairly a way for the map holder to know the idea of the world around him. Accuracy was secondary.
Centuries passed before the astronomer and astrologer appeared (*3*)Claudius Ptolemy attempted to create the first realistic map, a two-dimensional representation of what Ptolemy believed to be a spherical Earth. This is a perfect example of a great thinker applying a recent mental model – a fundamentally recent way of pondering about things; heuristics for interpreting the world. Instead of accepting earlier, more symbolic images of the Earth, Ptolemy ventured to create a realistic representation of it. He modified his way of pondering from telling stories to describing reality.
Mental models help us understand things more fully and find smarter, more innovative solutions. But as Charlie Munger, former vp of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., said. he used to saythat you must build a “grid” of mental models, using different models to maximise your understanding of various situations.
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