Human flaws and logical tools in engineering

This paper explores the limitations of human cognition, especially in engineering research, emphasizing the need for mathematical models and methods to guide decision-making and theory validation. While human cognition excels in certain tasks, it is prone to biases that can distort our understanding. Applications of complex systems to engineering are often approximations of reality rather than exact truths. The concept of emergence is examined to illustrate how macroscopic behaviours in systems may not be easily reducible to their microscopic components, highlighting the importance of both reductionist and holistic approaches. The trade-offs between simple and complex models in solving real-world problems are discussed in the context of the limitations of models in capturing the full complexity of the real systems.