Cognitive psychologist Philip Johnson-Laird spent decades studying how humans reason — and found something quietly unsettling: we don't reason from logic, we reason from models. We build small internal simulations of a situation, run them forward, and call the result 'thinking.' The problem isn't that our models are wrong. It's that we only ever simulate the world the model allows us to imagine. A model can't show you what it's excluded. Johnson-Laird called these 'mental models,' but the more interesting implication is one he left implicit: the boundary of your reasoning is identical to the boundary of your model. You cannot think your way to a conclusion your model doesn't permit. African Ubuntu philosophy adds a dimension Johnson-Laird didn't consider — it insists that models are never privately constructed. They are inherited, socially ratified, and maintained through agreement with others. 'I am because we are' isn't just a statement about identity; it's a claim about cognition. The models you trust most are the ones your community has stopped questioning. That's a useful warning for any leader: the mental model that feels most obvious, most taken-for-granted, is precisely the one you built with the most social reinforcement and examined the least. Today, find a conclusion you reached quickly this week — something that felt self-evident — and ask: who else in your usual circle would have reached the exact same conclusion? If everyone would, you may be running a shared simulation, not an independent one.

When did you last reach a different conclusion than the people you work closest with — and what made that possible?

Drawing from Cognitive psychology / African philosophy (Ubuntu) — Philip Johnson-Laird (synthesized with Ubuntu philosophical tradition)