new perspective on what happens before, during and after the waving of that magic wand which generates such a fascinating array of experiences for us all.

Because certain aspects of the structural elements and syntax of every model are experienced (or defined) as being within or beyond human control, every model contains within itself another behavioral model that identifies the possibilities and limitations of human behavior with respect to desired goals or outcomes.

Borrowing a flow chart from decision theory, we can represent this model visually as:

We will assume that the people concerned with the model represented by this diagram agree that environmental variables include all dimensions of experience beyond their control and that decision variables include all dimensions of experience within their control. For example, an executive planning committee would agree that they could decide when and where to build a new manufacturing plant toward achieving the outcome of increased production and sales; they would also agree that production and sales would be affected by inflation, government monetary policy, competition and consumer demand, which lie outside their control.

Again, the magician knows that under the watchful eyes of an attentive audience, on a stage of limited size, he can't possibly "make" an elephant weighing several tons disappear — unless he utilizes those same constraints (environmental variables) effectively in achieving his outcome — the disappearing act. Outcomes depend on contributions from both environmental variables and decision variables.

In fact, one of the major historical trends in the evolution of models of behavior is the transformation or utilization of experiences once regarded as environmental variables into decision variables. This trend is particularly evident in recent technological advances in the computer sciences and in manned space travel — more effective models operating to expand the potentials of human behavior.