Conceptual Model
In the most general sense, a model is anything used in any way to represent anything else. Some models are physical objects, for instance, a toy model which may be assembled, and may even be made to work like the object it represents. Whereas, a conceptual model is a model that exists only in the mind. Conceptual models are used to help us know and understand the subject matter they represent.
The term conceptual model may be used to refer to models which are formed after a conceptualization process in the mind. Conceptual models represent human intentions or semantics. Conceptualization from observation of physical existence and conceptual modeling are the necessary means human employ to think and solve problems. Concepts are used to convey semantics during various natural languages based communication. Since that a concept might map to multiple semantics by itself, an explicit formalization is usually required for identifying and locating the intended semantic from several candidates to avoid misunderstandings and confusions in conceptual models.
Read more about Conceptual Model: Models of Concepts and Models That Are Conceptual, Type and Scope of Conceptual Models, Statistical Models, Models in Systems Architecture
Famous quotes containing the words conceptual and/or model:
“We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher’s task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“...that absolutely everything beloved and cherished of the bourgeoisie, the conservative, the cowardly, and the impotent—the State, family life, secular art and science—was consciously or unconsciously hostile to the religious idea, to the Church, whose innate tendency and permanent aim was the dissolution of all existing worldly orders, and the reconstitution of society after the model of the ideal, the communistic City of God.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)