> It's sad to me that people are apparently so allergic to the term "theory" that we had to come up with this lesser version of it.
There's an argument to be made that it is useful to distinguish between mental models and theories.
If a theory is a structured, formal explanation of phenomena, grounded in evidence, logic, and often mathematics that is meant to be shared, tested, and and falsified, a mental model is more of an internal representation of how something works, often informal, simplified, personal, and built to help you reason, predict, and decide.
There's an argument to be made that it is useful to distinguish between mental models and theories.
If a theory is a structured, formal explanation of phenomena, grounded in evidence, logic, and often mathematics that is meant to be shared, tested, and and falsified, a mental model is more of an internal representation of how something works, often informal, simplified, personal, and built to help you reason, predict, and decide.
I find both tools useful, but different.