Principlev1

For any schema you plan to act on, explicitly inventory

For any schema you plan to act on, explicitly inventory three omissions—things the real territory contains that your schema does not—to counteract the natural tendency to treat a single mental model as complete.

Why This Is a Principle

Derives from Mental Models Are Singular by Default (people construct single mental models without generating alternatives) and Abstraction Necessarily Discards Information (abstraction discards information). The principle prescribes forced alternative-generation to overcome the single-model bias Johnson-Laird documented.

Source Lessons

L-0206

The map is not the territory

Your schema about a thing is never the thing itself — useful but always incomplete.

Connections

Derived From (2)

AxiomAbstraction Necessarily Discards Information AxiomMental Models Are Singular by Default

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