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Paper short abstract

This paper considers ontologies as a crucial prerequisite for computer models. Through a comparative study of the World3 and the LAWM models' material inscriptions in their source code and documentation, we show that the formation of what the model acts on is as important as how it acts.

Paper long abstract

This paper clarifies the role of ontologies in the future-oriented performance of models through a comparative analysis. A hybrid between technical data structures and conceptual framing, ontologies are implicit, static requirements of any simulation, often over-shadowed by their dynamic algorithmic counterparts. Yet, these "givens" are always what pre-determines the scope of any future-making processes.

Before asking "how does the model act?", we ask "what does it act on?". Be it humans who sort things out for cognitive convenience and social agency (Star and Bowker, 1999), machine learning which, to classify data, always requires categories to classify into, (Campolo & Schwerzman, 2023) or more traditional software systems, which depend on sound data structures to model the problem domain upon which procedures will act (Wirth, 1976), the question of what often precedes that of the how.

We consider the role of ontologies as a productive perspective on the work of models though a comparative study. First, we compare the ontologies at play in one of the most influential model in contemporary modelling science, World3 (Meadows et. al., 1972), with its staunchest critic, the Latin American World Model (Herrera, 1976). Through a material examination of the respective source codes, we argue that, starting from different premises, they inscribe fundamentally different political worlds.

We then upon up these findings to contemporary software systems, in particular the Foundry system of Palantir. From software documentations and company communications, we trace how ontologies allow an organization, through its software, to operationalize worldmaking as future-building.