Why and How One Models Exercise on a Computer (A Tutorial)

Abstract

The principal reason for modeling exercise or any physiological phenomenon is simply stated, “because we do not understand all we know.” This is particularly true in the mature parts of science where the principal characteristics of the subject have been described in a corpus of literature encompassing conceptually interlocking experiments and where conflicting or partial theory exists. Theory which is the formulation of a causal myth to explain elements in a catalog of observation serves the function of economizing on memory and increasing human control over processes that the knowledge describes, i.e., technology. Modeling, then, is no more than publication in an idiom which recalls many considerations necessary to any given situation and discovers new or unexpected implications of old systems of ideas. Instead of dialectic, computer simulation with models produces unambiguously the implied consequences of the assumptions which include both the declarative and the procedural forms of knowledge. Modeling is parsimonious. In physiology the variety of laboratory experiments that pertain to a global function like exercise is redundant exposition of a common underlying mechanism.